Teen Titans: Future Storm
by Rider Paladin
Summary: Years upon years into the future, the children of the Teen Titans take up where their parents left off. However, evil has survived in this time, its legacy carried on by the spawn of those that fought in its name in years past.
1. Ravaged: Thorns

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 1: "Ravaged"

Chapter 1: "Thorns"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters Nightstar, Ravager, and Mercury do not belong to me. The first two are owned solely by DC Comics and the third is a "slight" alteration of a character jointly owned by Marvel and DC Comics through their Amalgam Comics project. Everyone and everything else is mine, though.

Author's note: A warning before we proceed. This story is not for Titans fans who rigidly believe that all Titans stories should stick to just Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy. This story is set 25 years in the future, meaning that unless the Titans we know were to join the Justice Society of America, they'd be too old for the superhero stuff. Fortunately, they leave that sort of thing to their teenage children, whose adventures you will see in this story.

Don't worry. You'll still see most of the original Titans every now and again, just not as major characters because this isn't their story. It's the story of their children. I could set it up like the current comic incarnation of Teen Titans, which has veteran Titans mentoring the new generation of teen heroes, but who would want their parents following them on superhero missions?

Also, this story is going to be set up like an actual comic book, with several major arcs and several one-shot or two-part stories in between those arcs. Oh, and down along the line, you'll see the future Justice League and another team that I don't quite feel like mentioning to you just yet.

And you're getting sick of me rambling, so I'm just gonna start this story while I still have your attention.

_

* * *

The year 2014_

* * *

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson," the doctor spoke with a smile. "You have twins. A boy and a girl."

The doctor handed the twins over to Mrs. Grayson, an exotically beautiful redheaded alien with vibrant green eyes. Mr. Grayson, a boyishly handsome young man with short black hair and blue eyes, smiled adoringly at his wife and children.

Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were none other than Richard Grayson, the adopted son of billionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne, and Koriand'r, a superstar in the modeling industry and a member of the Titans. Richard was a Titan as well, but in the guise of Nightwing, an alias that had never been connected to him due to some clever deception on his part.

"What are you gonna name them, Kory?" Richard asked.

"We discussed this already, Richard," Kory replied with a warm smile. "The girl is Mar'i and the boy is Joh'n."

"Good names," Richard remarked with a lopsided grin.

_

* * *

Seven years later . . ._

* * *

Titans past and present watched with deep sadness as the casket was lowered into the ground.

"Daddy, why won't Mommy wake up?" Mar'i, already the spitting image of Kory barring her red-highlighted black hair, asked with tears in her eyes.

"Because she's dead," Joh'n spat bitterly. "She's dead and those . . . those . . ." The anger in his eyes melted away and he began to weep.

Richard was beside himself, unable to say anything that would comfort them. Koriand'r, alias Starfire, had left for Tamaran some months ago to assist her brother Ryand'r in quelling an insurgency. The battle had ultimately been won but at the cost of Starfire's life. Out of respect for Starfire's love of Earth, he had arranged for her to be buried in that planet's soil.

The hulking Tamaranean warrior known as Galfore walked to Richard and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I understand how you feel."

Richard looked at Galfore sadly. "I just wish I could say something, anything . . . I keep thinking this is a nightmare, that I'll wake up and find her sleeping next to me. It's a nightmare, and I'm awake for it."

"Do not be consumed by your sorrow, Richard," Galfore spoke.

_

* * *

One year later . . ._

* * *

Mar'i collapsed on the ground, while Joh'n was struck down by a brutal kick.

"You have to try harder than that," Richard spoke sternly. "Where's the righteous fury?"

Mar'i and Joh'n rose to their feet and attacked Richard together, Mar'i with a jumping kick to the chest and Joh'n with a low kick that would knock their father's feet out from under him. Richard caught Mar'i's kick while jumping over Joh'n's kick. Mar'i attempted to kick him with her other leg, but Richard moved his head out of the way and slammed her onto the floor of the mini-dojo. Joh'n attacked his father with swift strikes in an attempt to avenge his twin, one that was shortly halted by a chop to the neck that brought him down.

"That's enough for today," Richard said, walking out of the dojo. Once he was outside, he saw a familiar shadow awaiting him. "Tim."

"You have to stop this, Richard," Tim Drake, the third to bear the name Robin and now Batman himself, stated. "You're hurting them."

"They'll be stronger for it," Richard replied. "They won't end up like Kory. I'll make sure of that."

"They're children," Tim insisted, his voice deepening into his alter ego's harsh growl. "You have to let them have that, even if it's just for a little while."

"Wait till Stephanie dies on you," Richard snarled. "We'll see how you react."

An ordinary person wouldn't have seen Tim's subtle flinch, but Richard did. His expression softened. "I'm sorry. That was low of me."

"Just . . . be careful with them," Tim said before departing his figurative older brother's apartment.

Richard slumped sadly.

_

* * *

Six years later . . ._

* * *

"Do you, Richard Grayson, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the minister asked.

"I do," Richard replied.

"And do you, Barbara Gordon, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" the minister asked.

"I do," Barbara replied.

"Then by the power vested in me, I declare you husband and wife," the minister proclaimed. "You may now kiss the bride."

Richard leaned down and pulled back the veil from his bride, revealing the green eyes and down-to-earth beauty of Barbara Gordon, before kissing her softly on the lips. While most in the audience were cheering for the couple, there were two that sat in stony silence. One had an expression of barely restrained anger on her face and the other was simply expressionless.

Mar'i and Joh'n Grayson.

As the twins had grown into adolescence, they had borne witness to the blossoming romance between their father and his longtime friend Barbara Gordon, also known as the information broker Oracle and formerly known as Batgirl. Neither had been very happy about it.

Yes, they'd heard their father's friends – Roy Harper and Victor Stone, otherwise known as Arsenal and Cyborg, in particular – tell them that he couldn't spend the rest of his life mourning for their mother and that was fine by them. They just couldn't see why he had to get married again. It wasn't that Barbara was a bad woman; far from it, but the memory of their mother was still fresh in their minds and they couldn't imagine some other woman taking her place.

Unable to bear anymore, Mar'i stood and began to walk out of the church. Once she was out, a shadow materialized in front of her and took the form of Samara, the daughter of Raven "Rachel" Roth and Joey "Jericho" Wilson.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" she spoke. "That your father is able to move on and you can't."

Mar'i looked into Samara's violet eyes . . . and fell into her arms, weeping.

"It isn't supposed to be this way!" the half-Tamaranean girl cried. "Mom's supposed to be alive and Dad's supposed to be with her!"

Samara didn't say anything, instead channeling feelings of comfort and sisterly love into Mar'i's troubled mind to soothe her.

_

* * *

One year later . . ._

* * *

Mar'i, Joh'n, and Samara gathered in Titans Tower in Jump City, which had been retrofitted with new technology by Cyborg, the original designer of the Tower. Gathered with them were Peter Allen, the son of the current Flash Bart Allen; Terri Logan, the daughter of Changeling and a no-longer-amnesiac Terra; and Jeremiah Crockett, the son of Hotspot.

"So what do you think?" Mar'i asked.

"I think this is a pretty sweet place," Peter remarked. "I'm gonna like it here."

"So what do we call ourselves?" Joh'n asked.

"We already know what to call ourselves," Terri replied enthusiastically. "The Teen Titans!"

"I meant individually," Joh'n remarked. "Mar'i and I went by Nightstar and Bladefire when we were fighting crime in Blüdhaven and we know all about what you've been doing in Keystone, 'Mercury.'"

Peter grinned proudly.

"Why do we need codenames?" Samara asked. "Not like it's a big secret that a number of us are the children of former Titans."

"Yeah, but codenames strike fear in the hearts of criminals," Terri replied. "Call me Beast Girl!"

Jeremiah sighed. "As long as we're all on this codename craze, you can call me Inferno."

"I'm sticking with Samara," Samara said.

"Suit yourself," Nightstar said.

Just then, the klaxon sounded and the Titans rushed to the mainframe monitor. "There's a hostage situation," Bladefire said, pointing at the screen, "at these coordinates."

"What are we waiting for?" Mercury asked, having quick-changed into his costume, a short-sleeved blue-and-white running suit with a goggle-mask and lightning caps over the ears. "Let's go!"

_

* * *

The year 2030_

* * *

In a dimly lit chamber, six figures sat at a semicircular table looking intently at a seventh figure. The shadows obscured the seventh figure's features, all except a malevolently gleaming red eye.

"You know why we have summoned you," one of the sitting figures stated in a voice that sounded like that of a cultured young woman, accented by a demonic rasp.

"Yes," the seventh figure confirmed coldly.

"Another band of children has begun to operate under the name Titans," another of the sitting figures, his "face" illuminated by a morbid fiery glow around it, snarled. "They must be eliminated. Judging by your previous record, that sounds like something that would be right up your alley."

"You'd be correct in that presumption," the seventh figure stated. "What do I get if I kill them?"

"Five hundred million dollars," a third sitting figure replied, his voice like crackling flames. "Half now . . . the other half upon completion of the job."

"Sounds good," the seventh figure said and the shadows parted just enough for the six sitting figures to see a chilling smile. "Don't worry. You'll get the Titans' heads on a silver platter. You'd just better have my payment when I bring you those heads."

Then the seventh figure faded into the darkness, leaving the six sitting figures alone.

"You think she has any clue?" a fourth sitting figure asked.

"No," the first figure replied. "Contract killers such as this one are motivated by the challenge of the kill. These Titans should be a good enough challenge for her."

"Are we really going to let her do our dirty work?" a fifth sitting figure asked.

"We know your feelings concerning Beast Girl," the figure with the morbid glow around his "face" responded. "Do not worry. You'll get your chance."

* * *

In the main room of the remodeled Titans Tower, the newest Teen Titans had congregated and were set about their usual activities. Nightstar and Bladefire were manning the computers, performing a cyber-dive for any reports of crime that would be too much for the police to handle. Meanwhile, Mercury and Beast Girl warred against each other on the Gamestation XS. Inferno's nose was buried in a chemistry cyber-textbook, and Samara's nose was buried in a dark fantasy cyber-novel.

As for Raziel, the mysterious psychic martial artist they'd recruited some months ago, he was calmly reading a cyberpunk cyber-manga about teen hackers who found themselves blessed and cursed with powers born of something called the Carbon Plague.

Since the Titans were on-duty, as it was, they were in costume. Nightstar's costume consisted of a very tiny black top with a purple wing emblem that was designed in such a way that the "wings" wrapped around her shoulders, very tiny black shorts, thigh-high black boots, and purple wrist guards with embedded green gems. Bladefire's costume was a black shirt with diamond cutouts in the front, sides, and back and black pants with cutouts in the thighs and knees with silver boots, a belt, and wrist guards with embedded blue gems. Beast Girl wore a midriff-baring black shirt and low-riding black pants decorated with purple tooth and claw marks with armored boots and fingerless black gloves that exposed razor-sharp nails.

Samara wore a dark violet cloak over a black shirt that was leather at the top and sleeves and mesh at the midriff, a skirt made of leather belts hooked together, and knee-high platform boots. Inferno wore a skintight black suit with flame designs on the left side. Mercury wore a short-sleeved blue suit with white on the sides and insides of the calves and jagged edges where blue met white, as well as zip-up blue sneakers with white lightning caps on the back ends, blue fingerless gloves, and a blue half-mask with semitransparent white lenses and white lightning ear-caps. Raziel wore a white haori jacket with the kanji (Japanese writing character) for "angel" on the back over a black shirt with the kanji for "demon" written in blood red on the front and loose black pants with buckles and zippers all over.

"I've got you now, Silvertop!" Beast Girl declared as she whipped out a combo that depleted Mercury's health by more than half. She wiggled her hips with cheer as her fingers danced over the buttons on the Gamestation XS's virtual controller.

"Better be careful," Mercury remarked, watching Beast Girl's wiggling hips. "Your pants are so low that any more of that might give me a better view than the one I'm presently enjoying."

Beast Girl stopped in mid-wiggle and glared. "Pervert!" At that moment, she saw Mercury's hands moving at super-speed over the buttons of his virtual controller, pulling out all kinds of vicious combos that brought her character's health down to zero.

"I win!" Mercury shouted, doing a hyper-speed victory run around the main room. "And once again, the Shinobi of Speed takes it home!"

"You cheated," Beast Girl declared.

"I-didn't-cheat!" Mercury shouted. "I-just-took-advantage-of-your-distraction! That's-not-cheating! That's-the-way-of-the-ninja!"

"You're not a ninja!" Beast Girl exclaimed in annoyance.

Inferno just chuckled in amusement as he read his chemistry textbook.

"You find this funny?" Samara asked.

"Hey, if I've gotta read this textbook, I need some amusement to keep me from going nuts," Inferno replied calmly.

Raziel said nothing, so intent on his cyber-manga he was.

Nightstar and Bladefire couldn't be persuaded to give a crap about the nature of their teammates' squabble, as their minds were submerged in cyberspace.

"Ok, Mr. Speed Ninja, you've had your fun," Samara grumbled in annoyance. "Now quit running around."

"Not-until-she-apologizes-for-accusing-me-of-cheating!" Mercury declared.

"You are _so_ a cheater!" Beast Girl insisted.

Samara growled and a wall of black telekinetic force emerged in front of Mercury, forcing him to stop dead in his tracks before he hit it. He turned to Samara with a glare in his partially obscured eyes. "What was that about?"

"You'd have created a sonic boom if you weren't careful," Samara answered.

"Oh," Mercury uttered with a slight blush.

"Now, do you two mind not annoying me?" Samara asked. "Some of us are trying to read."

"Sorry," Mercury and Beast Girl said simultaneously.

"Wanna play again?" Beast Girl asked.

"Sure," Mercury replied. Under his breath, he added, "And maybe play a different game later."

Just as the two were about to begin again, Nightstar and Bladefire re-emerged into the real world from their cyber-dive.

"You two find anything?" Raziel asked in his usual soft, measured tones.

"Yeah," Nightstar replied. "We found a break-in at an old factory owned by Mace Chemicals."

"You know who it is?" Samara asked.

"No," Bladefire replied. "Not that it matters. We'll beat them like we've beaten every other criminal in this city."

* * *

The Titans took to the streets in the fastest methods they had available. Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, as a bird-human hybrid resembling a harpy, and Samara flew. Inferno and Raziel rode on motorcycles, the former on a flame-decaled black motorcycle, the latter on a silver-and-blue motorcycle. Mercury ran alongside them at super-speed.

When they reached the factory, they first noticed that it was faintly lit. There was enough light to see and navigate around, but there were also plenty of shadows that seemed to get darker the higher they looked.

"It's pretty dark," Mercury remarked.

"Do you still sleep with a nightlight, Silvertop?" Beast Girl asked snidely.

"No!" Mercury replied heatedly.

"Will you shut up?" Samara asked quietly. "You're giving away our position."

"We came in through the front door," Inferno remarked, having shifted into his fiery form upon entering the factory, "and I give off plenty of light like this. The guy who broke in probably knows we're here already, thanks to me."

At that moment, the Titans heard a mocking feminine giggle. "What makes you think it's a guy?"

The Titans looked up at the source of the voice and saw a young woman standing on the catwalk looking down on them. She was dressed in a skintight black suit that looked like it was made of leather, with the shoulders and arms covered in what looked like chain mail and a triangular cutout in the chest that revealed a moderate amount of cleavage. Her hands were covered in black leather gloves with two black metal bands wrapped around each forearm. A silver belt hung loosely at her shapely hips. Silver armor encased her knees, shins, and the tops of her feet. A mask that was entirely black on the left side and orange on the right side with a red lens concealed the upper half of her face.

"Men," the leather-and-armor-clad young woman remarked. "So chauvinistic. Whatever happened to the 'new, enlightened man'?"

"He took a break," Mercury quipped.

"Who are you?" Nightstar asked.

"My enemies, not that they've lived very long after meeting me, call me The Ravager," the young woman replied, leaping off the catwalk and landing agilely in a crouch, one hand planted on the ground.

"I've got her," Mercury said, running at The Ravager, only to set off a mine when he ran. Fortunately, he was fast enough to avoid getting his leg blown off, and he continued running at Ravager, avoiding mines along the way. Unfortunately, Ravager was waiting for him, seeking the proper opportunity to strike. When Mercury came up behind her with a sneak attack in mind, The Ravager whirled and stabbed him in the gut with a knife.

"Mercury!" Beast Girl shouted in horror. That horror soon turned to rage, and her form shifted from a blonde green elf to a green-furred cat-girl. She sprang at The Ravager and slashed at her, but the masked woman caught her wrist before the claws could connect. Beast Girl slashed at her with her free hand, but Ravager caught that wrist as well.

"You're good," she murmured. "And kinda cute, too. You're lucky I like cats."

This startled Beast Girl long enough for Ravager to viciously knee-jab her and subsequently deliver a nerve strike to the neck that knocked the shape-shifter unconscious.

"Two down," she whispered.

Inferno shot a massive wave of fire at The Ravager that obscured everything in front of him . . . until The Ravager leaped into a flying kick through the fire wave, knocking the fire-starter into a wall.

"How did you . . . ?" he asked in surprise.

To the surprise of the Titans, Ravager looked as though the flames hadn't touched her at all, save for the unusually pink skin exposed by her cowl and by the triangular cutout in the chest of her costume. However, the pink was becoming lighter quite fast.

Samara summoned tendrils of psychic darkness and projected them at The Ravager, who practically danced out of their way. The dark-haired psychic's response was to rip the floor out from underneath the masked young woman. Unfortunately for her, The Ravager jumped out of the way of the collapsing floor, so Samara telekinetically lacerated the backs of her knees, apparently crippling her. To her surprise, The Ravager simply got up again.

"How?" she asked.

Ravager merely smiled at her before somersaulting over her, taking the time to slap something on her temples. Samara had only a nanosecond to wonder what it was before an indescribable pain ripped through her mind, eliciting screams from her.

"Samara!" Inferno shouted. He turned to Ravager. "What the hell did you do to her, you bitch?"

"Not a nice thing to call a lady," Ravager replied mockingly. "Didn't your mother teach you any manners?"

"Don't talk about my mother!" Inferno yelled. "Now what the hell did you do to Samara?"

"Oh, don't worry, Firestorm, she'll live," the Ravager answered.

Inferno charged at The Ravager with flaming fists at the ready. Unfortunately, she flicked a capsule at him, and it exploded in a gooey mess that he couldn't burn through.

"What the hell is this?" the fire user asked.

Before The Ravager could make a witty retort, she moved her head to the side, neatly evading a speeding projectile aimed for her head. She moved her head two more times, evading two more speeding projectiles aimed for her head.

"Nice try," she said. The next thing she knew, there was a neat tear in the midriff of her suit and there was even a little blood escaping. It soon stopped, though, as the wound began to miraculously seal itself. Finally, she grabbed the source of that wound by his wrist as he was preparing to strike again. "Raziel. Nice to meet you." She punched him in the stomach, but he quickly recovered and kicked her in the solar plexus. Ravager gave no sign of being affected so adversely by the kick and pulled out three throwing knives from her belt, hurling them at Raziel, who caught them all in midair. "Impressive. You've got faster reflexes than I thought."

Raziel didn't say anything, instead choosing to slash at her with his index and middle fingers, which were sheathed in sharpened psychic energy. Dodging the slashes, Ravager kicked his legs out from under him, only for him to turn his fall into a handstand and flip back onto his feet. The two resumed their fight and Ravager flipped behind him, spinning in midair to kick him in the back of the head. However, he whirled around and grabbed her ankle, throwing her at a wall. She somersaulted in the air and landed on her feet.

The two came at each other again, trading punches and kicks that would seriously injure – if not kill – a normal human. Finally, Ravager faked a jab at Raziel's face and the white-and-black-clad young man moved his head out of the way . . . only to fall victim to a vicious heel strike to his temple, knocking him unconscious.

"That's five," The Ravager stated. She spotted Nightstar and Bladefire and smiled. "The leaders of the Titans. Ready to face me now?"

Bladefire's right hand glowed blue and the glow shaped itself into a sword. Nightstar's right hand glowed violet and she lashed at The Ravager with an energy whip. The Ravager merely dodged and smirked at Nightstar.

"I didn't know you were into that sort of thing," she remarked, almost flirtatious. She reached behind her and withdrew a katana with a gleaming blade.

The twin Tamaranean terrors, as Nightstar and Bladefire had been affectionately nicknamed when they were younger, didn't know what hit them. All they knew was that something had struck them quickly and viciously, bringing them down before they'd even seen it coming.

"What the hell was that?" Bladefire asked.

"Don't know," Nightstar replied.

"Am I that fast or are you two that slow?" Ravager remarked with a smirk.

Bladefire slashed at the Titans' masked attacker, but she blocked with her sword. He jumped back and slashed at her again, only for her to parry the slash this time and slash him. However, she found herself unable to tear through the cloth to reach his more vulnerable – so she assumed – flesh.

The redheaded half-Tamaranean smirked. "Tamaranean cloth. Far more durable than anything you'll find on this planet." His eyes glowed blue and he blasted her into a wall.

At least, that was what would have happened if she hadn't raised the flat of her blade in time and positioned it so that the optic blast hit Nightstar instead.

"Nightstar!" Bladefire shouted in horror. He glared at the Ravager. "How did you do that?"

"Deflect your blast?" The Ravager asked. "Let's just say I have a sixth sense about these things and leave it at that."

"Nice try," Nightstar hissed as she got up. "But Bladefire's hit me a lot harder than that before!" She flew at Ravager and lashed at her with an energy whip, only for the masked young woman to catch it and use it to pull her toward her. Nightstar took the opportunity to kick Ravager in the head.

Apparently, the dark-haired Titan leader had kicked Ravager too hard, since the masked attacker's head was cocked at an awkward position.

"That. Hurt," The Ravager grumbled as she wrenched her head back into position. "But I see you like to play rough. I like that in my playmates."

Nightstar growled and aimed a chop for her neck, but Ravager sidestepped it and grabbed her wrist. Nightstar swung herself into the air and maneuvered herself for a kick to the face. Ravager merely dropped and twisted, pinning the Titan leader to the ground.

"Why are you struggling?" she asked. "I rather like the view. Do you like the view, Nightstar?"

Nightstar's response was a vicious knee to Ravager's gut, knocking enough wind out of her for the half-Tamaranean to slip free of her grasp. She lashed at the leather-and-armor-clad young woman, only for her whip to wrap around The Ravager's sword. The Ravager threw Nightstar into a wall, only to be surprised when something propelled her into another wall.

"That's for stabbing me," Mercury stated.

"Ah, the so-called Shinobi of Speed," Ravager remarked as she got back on her feet.

"Mercury?" Bladefire asked.

"Don't worry, I'm ok," Mercury replied. "Speed healing works wonders on stab wounds." He grinned. "Like my boom snap?"

"That's what you did to her?" Bladefire asked. "Remind me not to piss you off."

"Three of us, one of you," Nightstar said to Ravager as she rejoined the other remaining Titans.

"As far as I'm concerned, that means _you're_ outnumbered," The Ravager retorted with a smirk.

Suddenly, she was battered by a number of invisible assaults. To the surprise of Nightstar and Bladefire, she laughed.

"Good technique, Mercury," she remarked. "Run around me so fast even I can't see you and set off a number of miniature sonic booms while you're running."

Indeed, that was Mercury's plan. Additionally, he was moving so fast that he had started a veritable cyclone around her and the aforementioned cyclone was tossing her around like a rag doll. Unfortunately for him, the Ravager reached down and grabbed him by his exposed platinum hair, forcibly halting his run. That wasn't the really bad part, though.

The really bad part was that a tornado, once started, continued on its own momentum and not the power of the speedster that caused it . . . and it was catching everyone in its path.

Nightstar swore under her breath and threw out her energy whip, the whip wrapping around the guardrail of the catwalk. "We'd better get the hell out of here," she said.

"Agreed," Bladefire stated as Mercury began super-speeding the fallen Titans out of the factory. He looked at Nightstar. "What do we do about Ravager?"

Nightstar peered into the eye of the tornado. "I don't see her anywhere in there. She must have escaped somehow."

"Then it's time we got out of here," Bladefire answered.

With that statement made, the twin Tamaranean terrors flew out of the factory.

* * *

"There goes the factory," Mercury commented. "You think Mace Chemicals will be mad at us?"

"The corporations in this country are used to superhero/villain fights resulting in damage to their buildings," Nightstar replied. "I'm sure they'll at least pretend to be understanding."

"She was good," Bladefire remarked. "She took pretty much all of us out with not very much effort."

"Who is she?" Mercury asked.

"I don't know, but we're going to find out," Nightstar replied. "Come on, team, let's go home."

"Uh, you mind cutting me out of this crap first?" Inferno asked.

"Oh, yeah," Bladefire murmured. He summoned his energy sword and with a few swift slices, Inferno was freed from the flame retardant. The fire user proceeded to pick up a piece of the flame retardant and slip it inside a compartment in his belt. "Huh?"

"I want to study this stuff," Inferno replied. "If I figure out what it's made of, I might be able to duplicate it or counter it."

"Oh, yeah, wouldn't wanna be snuffed out again," Mercury quipped.

Inferno merely stared at him and walked to Samara, whose eyes were wide and unseeing as he powered down and removed the object The Ravager had planted on her temple. He picked her up as she closed her eyes.

"Whoever she is, she just made an enemy of me," Inferno declared.

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, The Ravager made her way back to a posh apartment unobserved by either the people on the street or the people in the apartment complex. Once inside, she removed her two-colored bisected mask, revealing the face of a woman in her early twenties. Her face was highlighted by a single blue eye, the absence of its twin concealed by a black patch, and framed in long, lustrous silver hair.

The Ravager smiled. "A good night's work, if I say so myself." Even if she hadn't killed the Titans, she'd gained an estimate of their abilities. Overall, they were quite a strong team. Some could have done some real damage if she hadn't done her homework beforehand.

The vid-phone beeped rapidly, and the silver-haired young woman walked to her desk, quickly activating the "audio only" option before answering. "Hello?"

"We watched your performance tonight, Ravager," the cultured young woman spoke. "We were most impressed."

"Thanks. I like to make a good impression on my employers," Ravager answered with a smirk.

"However, you did not kill the Titans," the young woman stated, the demonic rasp becoming more pronounced.

"Didn't feel like it," Ravager replied promptly. "Not immediately. They're a challenge. I have fun with them. I haven't had that much fun in years."

"Yes, well, be careful that your 'fun' doesn't interfere with getting the job done," the young woman advised coldly.

"I won't," Ravager smirked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a hot bath to enjoy." She turned off her vid-phone and walked into the bathroom, where she began to run the water for her bath.

Five minutes later, a nude Ravager slipped into the bathtub with an almost ecstatic smile on her face, thinking of what would happen when she encountered the Titans again . . . especially a certain pair of twins.

* * *

End Notes: So what did you think of that? Assuming you weren't entirely turned off by the fact that these Titans are not the same as in the show – and that you're not one of those "Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy or no one" fanatics – you might have derived some enjoyment from this. However, far be it from me to assume what you are all thinking and feeling. Speaking of your thoughts and feelings, it'd be best for you to tell me in a review.

If anyone was confused about "cyber-diving," "cyber-novels," "cyber-textbooks," and "virtual controllers," I'll explain all of those. "Cyber-diving" is what people in the year 2030 do when they completely immerse themselves in the Internet to look for information. The way this works is that their bodies are sitting in chairs while their minds are riding on the information superhighway via special headsets. "Cyber-books" – whether they be textbooks or novels (graphic or printed word) – are flat-panel display versions of books that can be opened into two parts in a manner similar to actual paper books. Virtual controllers come with game systems and are essentially hard-light constructs that materialize when a video game is ready to be played. However, one needs special gloves to be able to use them. And vid-phones are self-evident, aren't they?

Also, the XS designation of the Gamestation Beast Girl and Mercury use is a reference to Bart Allen's (Impulse/Kid Flash/Flash in this story) cousin Jenni Ognats, a.k.a. the speedster XS. Long story made short: Barry Allen, the second Flash, went to the future to be with Iris West Allen, his wife. He had twin children with her, Don and Dawn Allen, who both had children of their own when they grew up. Bart was Don's son and Jenni/XS was Dawn's daughter. Further explanation gets far too complicated, so I'll skip that.

Ravager's nickname for Inferno, Firestorm, is a reference to the DC Comics superhero by the same name. Despite the name, Firestorm's powers aren't actually fire-based, but his head looks like it's on fire when his powers are active. That might be the reason for the name.


	2. Ravaged: Petals

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 1: "Ravaged"

Chapter 2: "Petals"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters Nightstar and Ravager are owned by DC Comics and Mercury is jointly owned by DC Comics and Marvel Comics; I simply altered him for the purposes of this story. The new Nightwing that appears in this story is also a character owned by DC Comics, although in DC canon, Nightwing hasn't been replaced yet. The original Nightwing and Oracle are also owned by DC Comics. Everyone else is my creation, for the most part.

Author's note: So far, it seems that people like this story. For those of you who are pairing-obsessed, the seeds of certain pairings between the new Titans were planted in the first chapter. While I can't give shout-outs to my reviewers anymore, not that I ever did, I can say that the reviewer who deduced Ravager's identity is right on the money. However, I will not say who she is in the context of this story until I'm ready.

Also, as this arc progresses, you will see just how much Nightstar and Bladefire take after their father.

* * *

The Teen Titans returned to Titans Tower and not in the best of spirits.

"She kicked our asses," Mercury deadpanned. In his arms, Beast Girl began to stir. Finally, she opened her catlike golden eyes. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Beast Girl replied as she shifted back into her human form from her "cat-girl" form. "This is . . . kinda romantic, actually."

Mercury blushed.

Beast Girl's golden eyes suddenly snapped wide open and she leaped out of Mercury's arms. The platinum-haired speedster wasn't extremely surprised, as she'd been skittish when it came to being touched by another person for the past several years. He just wondered where it came from.

Samara finally woke up, only to find herself in Inferno's arms. "What happened?"

"Ravager slapped something on your head," Inferno replied. "Judging from what it did to you, I suspect it was some kind of anti-psi weapon. You ok?"

"Yeah, I am," Samara answered. "I just have a huge headache."

"I'll take you to the infirmary," Inferno offered.

Samara shifted onto her feet. "Thanks, Jeremiah, but I can walk myself to the infirmary."

"There'll be tablets waiting in there to ease the headache," Inferno said.

Samara looked at him, her violet eyes meeting his dark gray eyes. A soft smile came to her pale lips. "Thank you," she said before turning around and walking out of the main room and to the infirmary.

"You're welcome," Inferno whispered.

Nightstar and Bladefire went to the computer, slipping on black headsets and connecting those headsets through wires to the computer.

"What are you going to do?" Raziel asked.

"Dive," Nightstar replied and no more was spoken; she and Bladefire were now completely immersed in cyberspace. The duo surfed through cyberspace, searching for information on the mysterious masked warrior that called herself The Ravager.

"You think Interpol would know about her?" Bladefire asked.

"Most likely," Nightstar replied.

The twins entered the Interpol database and glided through it. Finally, they found a file titled "The Ravager."

"Let's take a look," Nightstar said.

The twins accessed the file. There was a picture of The Ravager in action, but it was slightly blurry. They looked below the picture and read the text.

_The Ravager_

_Real name: Unknown_

_Date of birth: Unknown_

_Height: 5'6" to 5'9"_

_Weight: Unknown_

_Eyes: Unknown_

_Hair: Unknown_

_Sex: Female_

_Occupation: Assassin_

_Status: At large_

_Notes: The Ravager's first known kill was approximately three years ago. She seems to be in her early twenties, but the method with which she kills suggests a level of skill and talent beyond her years. She is an assassin of the highest caliber, maybe even the Deathstroke of her generation. She certainly seems to have borrowed his look._

"We've seen enough," Bladefire stated.

"For now," Nightstar added. "I know there's more out there. I know there is."

"Yeah, but for now, we should return to the real world," Bladefire suggested.

"Sure," Nightstar conceded as she and Bladefire rose back to the "surface," the real world in other words.

"So what did you find?" Raziel asked as Nightstar and Bladefire pulled their headsets off.

"Not much," Nightstar replied. "But we do know why she came after us."

"Why's that?" Raziel asked.

"She's an assassin," Bladefire answered. "Someone hired her to kill us. The question is who."

"The Interpol file on her said that she borrowed her look from an assassin called Deathstroke," Nightstar added.

"Deathstroke?" Mercury asked. "As in Slade?"

"Yeah," Nightstar confirmed. She sighed heavily. "I'm going to see my dad."

"Didn't you once say that you weren't going to have anything to do with him ever again once you became a Titan?" Inferno asked.

"He and Slade were archenemies," Nightstar replied. "If this Ravager is connected to Slade, then my dad would be the go-to guy . . . no matter how much I hate having to turn to him."

* * *

With that statement made, Nightstar and Bladefire flew to their onetime home of Bludhaven.

"The good old 'Haven," Nightstar remarked.

"Yeah," Bladefire added grimly.

"Wanna kick some ass while we're here?" Nightstar asked. "It'd be a good tension reliever."

"Sure," Bladefire replied grimly.

Nightstar and Bladefire tapped their ears, activating the sound amplifiers in them. The sounds of the city came flooding in, particularly the sounds of crime being committed.

"You don't remember me, huh?" a rough voice shouted before the twins heard the sounds of a beating. "Yeah, well, maybe you remember the Head!"

The twin Tamaranean terrors silently leaped from the rooftop of the skyscraper on which they had been crouching, swooping down on the criminal in question. He was a man in a worn leather jacket over a red shirt and torn jeans with a ski cap covering his head. The man he had been beating up was a slightly shorter dark-haired man with frightened eyes and dressed much the same as the man beating him up.

"Hey," Nightstar greeted. "Enforcer, huh? Does that pay a lot?"

"Keeps me in my house," the leather-jacketed man replied as he pulled his gun out of his pocket. "Now you two punks better get lost before I slag you both!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Bladefire drawled. "Nothing we haven't heard before."

"Fine, tough guy, let's see you survive a bullet to the head!" the enforcer shouted, firing a single shot at Bladefire, who dove to the side and rolled.

"You asked for this," the red-haired half-Tamaranean said as he summoned his energy sword. He half-flew, half-lunged at the enforcer and sliced his gun out of his hand with the energy blade.

"Crap!" the enforcer exclaimed. "A freaking meta! I didn't think there were metas in this city!"

"We don't hang around here often," Nightstar remarked.

The enforcer turned to run and Nightstar and Bladefire flew after him. The enforcer ran into an alley and climbed up a fire escape. Just as the twins were about to pursue him, he was knocked off by a dark shadow.

"Ahhh!" the enforcer yelled as he impacted against the pavement.

"Stay out of this place," the shadow growled, gazing at him with blank white eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.

"This ain't your neighborhood, bitch," the enforcer snarled. "Belongs to the Head now!"

The shadow simply punched the enforcer in the face, knocking him out. She rose to her feet, revealing herself to the twins as a woman in skintight black with compartmentalized cuffs around her forearms and calves. An electric blue bird was emblazoned on her chest and a black cloak with the hood up covered her shoulders. A dark blue mask with white lenses concealed her face.

"Nightwing," Nightstar greeted.

"Nightstar," Nightwing greeted back. She turned to Bladefire. "Bladefire. Long time no see."

Richard Grayson had realized that when he retired as Nightwing that Bludhaven might sink back into the mire of corruption out of which he'd worked so hard to pull it. Therefore, he'd entrusted the name Nightwing and the safety of Bludhaven to Stephanie Brown, alias the hooded vigilante then known as the Spoiler.

"What's going on, Nightwing?" Bladefire asked. "Who's this 'Head' guy?"

"The Devil's Head, you mean," Nightwing amended. "And he's a new crime boss that's been rising to power here in Bludhaven. Protection rackets, drug rackets, human trafficking – the sick bastard's got his fingers in nearly every pie in existence and he's been putting cops and politicians in his pocket. It's not nearly as bad as when your dad first came here, but it's not a pretty sight."

"Any way we can help?" Nightstar asked.

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't think you came here just to help out here," Nightwing answered.

"You're right," Nightstar said. "We came to see our father, but we thought we'd take a detour and mop the floor with the criminal element."

"Truly your father's children," Nightwing remarked, only to catch a glare from the twins. "Sheesh, what did I say?"

"Nothing," Bladefire replied darkly as he flew away with Nightstar, leaving behind a very puzzled Nightwing.

* * *

"Mar'i, Joh'n, it's good to see you again," Richard Grayson, formerly known as Robin and Nightwing, stated.

"Yeah," Nightstar uttered neutrally.

"So what's going on right now?" Richard asked.

"Someone tried to kill us," Bladefire replied. "Dressed in black with chain mail and armor and a bisected mask that was completely black on one side and orange on the other. Called herself The Ravager."

"I know that design scheme very well," Richard said. He went to his computer and typed something on the keyboard, resulting in the image of a man dressed in black with gray chain mail and armor and a mask just like The Ravager's but with the colors switched. "Slade Wilson. Also known as Deathstroke the Terminator during his mercenary days, before he started amassing power in the criminal underworld."

"We know," Bladefire stated. "What does this have to do with Ravager?"

"Maybe nothing, maybe everything," Richard replied. He typed again and this time, Slade's image shifted to occupy the left half of the screen as Ravager's image emerged in the right half of the screen.

"So alike," Nightstar murmured.

"Yeah," Richard replied. "Look at their masks. Slade's is orange on the left side, but Ravager's is orange on the right side . . . like a mirror."

"It's symbolism," Nightstar deduced. "Whoever this Ravager is, she wants us to look at her as a reflection of Slade . . . or that is what she wants to become. But why?"

"You think it could be one of his old apprentices?" Bladefire asked.

"Slade disappeared about twenty years ago," Richard answered.

"Yeah, but if he's still alive today . . . he could be," Bladefire surmised. "Didn't you say that that serum the military gave him not only enhanced his mind and physical abilities but also gave him regenerative abilities so powerful he could even come back from death?"

"Yes," Richard admitted.

"So wouldn't it be plausible that Slade spent the past twenty years training a successor?" Bladefire continued. "Someone who'd have the ability and skill required to take us on?"

"The question is who," Nightstar remarked.

Richard sighed. "You two should visit more. And for stuff other than crime-fighting."

Nightstar stared impassively, the tension between her and her father so palpable that Ravager could have cut through it with her katana.

"You're still angry over me marrying Barbara, aren't you?" Richard deduced.

"Sorry if we don't take kindly to having our mother replaced," Nightstar answered with an iciness that would have scared Raven and Samara.

"I keep telling you, I'm not trying to replace your mother," Richard stated as calmly as he could. "I don't see why you two hate Barbara so much. She's a good woman."

"We don't doubt that," Bladefire answered.

"Yet you treat her like a criminal just for being my wife!" Richard shouted.

"She reminds us too much of Mom," Nightstar admitted. "They're both redheads. They both have beautiful green eyes. They're both full of life and spirit and . . ." She rubbed her eyes, as if trying to erase demons. "How can we think that you're not trying to replace Mom when you marry someone who's almost exactly like her?"

Richard exhaled sadly. "You should go. You have school in the morning."

"It _is_ morning," Nightstar remarked. "Like, three in the morning."

"Here it is," Richard stated. "You two fly back to Jump right now, you might still get in a few hours of sleep before school starts."

"Sure," Bladefire said. "Night, Dad."

"Night, Dad," Nightstar echoed and laid a daughterly kiss on his cheek.

"Good night, Mar'i," Richard said. "Good night, Joh'n."

The twins left the same way they'd entered: through the window. About fifteen minutes after they'd left, Barbara Gordon-Grayson entered her and Richard's room in her wheelchair.

"Hi, Barb," Richard greeted with a warm smile. "Finished networking with the League?"

"Yeah," Barbara replied. "Tim is as grim as always."

"I think that cape and cowl is possessed," Richard remarked. "Everyone who puts it on ends up unsmiling, obsessive, and paranoid. Hell, even I wasn't as pleasant as I normally am when I filled in for Bruce."

"Tim's not nearly as bad as Bruce was," Barbara remarked. "And was that Mar'i and Joh'n I heard fifteen minutes ago?"

"Yeah," Richard confirmed. "An assassin modeling herself after Slade came after them and the other Titans."

"They'll be all right, Richard," Barbara said. "You trained them too well for them not to be."

"I know, Barbara, but . . . I'm their father," Richard said. "The part of me that's purely Nightwing knows I trained them well enough but the part of me that's a father is scared to death for them."

Barbara reached up and Richard leaned down into her embrace.

"Trust them, Richard," she whispered. "Trust them."

* * *

The next morning, the Teen Titans were on their way to Jump City High School. The reason was that all their parents had unanimously insisted that being superheroes didn't automatically preclude them from being in the company of ordinary people their age . . . except for Changeling, who'd objected on the grounds that, "No kid should have to suffer through the hell that is school!" He'd gotten a sharp whack on the head from Terra for that remark and if they'd been in a court of law, one would say that the motion had been passed without much opposition.

Since the Titans were going to school and not to combat, they were dressed in normal clothes. Nightstar wore a black tank top and purple skirt with black boots. Bladefire wore a red T-shirt and blue jeans. Beast Girl wore a loose shoulder-baring azure top and blue jeans with brown leather sandals. Samara wore a black sleeveless top and knee-length black jean skirt with a slit in the middle, complemented by black knee-high boots and fingerless gloves. Inferno wore a black-and-red shirt, khaki pants, and tan boots. Mercury wore a white shirt with blue shoulders and sleeves and baggy black pants. Raziel wore a white vest over a black shirt and white pants with white boots.

"Everyone ready?" Nightstar asked.

"Mar'i, you act like we're on our way to a fight," Beast Girl remarked. "It's a little irritating."

"We gotta be ready," Nightstar stated unrepentantly.

"Can we just go in already?" Mercury asked. "The sooner we're in, the sooner we're out."

"It doesn't work like that, Peter," Inferno replied patiently. "We get out at a predetermined time. Earlier if we're lucky, later if we're not."

"Let's get this over with," Bladefire said as he and Nightstar walked into the high school with the other Titans following. It didn't take long for their fans to notice that they'd arrived and begin hounding them for autographs.

"We'd like to sign autographs, but we've gotta prepare for class just like you do," Nightstar said. "And while we're here, you could try to address us by our real names."

"Uh, ok, Ni – Mar'i," her lovesick fan answered. "God, even your real name is beautiful."

A low rumble of irritation came forth from Raziel.

"Is somebody jealous?" Samara whispered to Raziel.

"No," Raziel whispered back.

Just then, loud squeals could be heard. That meant one thing.

Fangirls.

"We'd better bail," Mercury said. "The fangirls are coming."

"I'm not letting them touch you!" Beast Girl declared with a feral gleam in her golden eyes. "They'll have to get past me first!"

"Sure, just don't hurt or kill them," Mercury advised. As an aside, he added, "Although I wouldn't mind if you slapped them around a bit."

"I heard that, Peter Allen," Nightstar growled.

A sea of pastel colors and blonde and highlighted hair came down on the Titans and converged on the male members, inexorably crowding out the female members.

"Sign my autograph, Bladefire!"

"You can sign my bra, Mercury!" This was followed by the lifting of a shirt and a horrified scream.

"Damn, woman, you'll poke somebody's eyes out with those!"

"Peter!" Beast Girl exclaimed as she fought past the crazed fangirls to get to Mercury. "Keep your surgically enhanced goodies away from him!"

"Sign my ass, Inferno!"

"Oh, dammit, that is enough," Samara growled, summoning a wave of dark energy to separate the fangirl from Inferno. "Keep your sluttish ass away from him. Got that?"

"You're not supposed to use your creepy powers here, goth-witch!" the fangirl yelled.

"You were harassing him," Samara answered. "Therefore, I was perfectly justified in utilizing whatever means available to me to stop the harassment. The principal will understand."

"Will you please get away from me?" Raziel asked his fans. "I'll sign your autographs, but first I require space."

"You can sign my panties!" one fangirl suggested, beginning to reach under her miniskirt.

"Thank you, but I'll settle for paper," Raziel answered calmly.

At that moment, the assistant principal Mrs. Stowe, a stern woman in her late forties with her mousy brown hair tied back in a severe bun, stormed up to the Titans and their fans.

"That is enough," she declared. "You are all to get to class before the tardy bell rings."

The Titans let out a sigh of relief as they went to their respective classes. Nightstar, Bladefire, and Inferno shared a trigonometry class with Mr. Ridgeway, a bespectacled thirty-something. Mercury and Beast Girl had Mr. Jimenez, a pleasant man in his early forties, as their chemistry teacher. Raziel and Samara were in AP Literature with Ms. McCaffrey, a severely dressed twenty-something who was perhaps a little too eager to prove that she had brains behind her attractive features.

* * *

"I. Freaking. Hate. Trig," Inferno growled under his breath.

Nightstar and Bladefire, on the other hand, loved trigonometry. After all, their best trick shots with their optic blasts were made based on trigonometric principles.

"Trigonometry," Inferno muttered in repulsed tones. "Trigon." He snickered silently. "I found out the secret to the evil of trigonometry. It's named after Samara's bastard grandfather."

"Ok, now quit distracting me," Nightstar whispered. "I'm working here."

Bladefire was completely oblivious to the exchange, but that was the price of being as deeply focused as he was.

* * *

In Jimenez's chemistry class, Mercury was mixing chemicals and looking at Beast Girl from the corner of his eye. Silent as a breeze, he moved to her.

"You know, you look very cute in that lab coat," he whispered.

Beast Girl blushed. "Thanks, but don't you have chemicals to mix?"

"Sure," Mercury whispered, "but we can always mix our own chemicals later." He breezed back to his table.

"Peter, may I advise you not to use your powers to chat up your classmates?" Jimenez asked.

Mercury had a sheepish expression on his face. "Sorry, Mr. Jimenez."

"I'll let it slide this time," Jimenez said. "After all, I remember all too well what it was like to be a lovesick teenager."

"I do this all the time," Mercury mumbled in embarrassment. "Doesn't mean I'm in love."

In all his embarrassment and petulance, the platinum-haired speedster failed to notice that the contents he had mixed into his beaker were ready to explode. A closer look revealed this information to him. He cursed under his breath, capped the beaker, and threw it out the window just before it exploded.

"Damn, Pete, that's one impressive bomb you made," a student named Schuyler remarked.

"Yes, but you're not supposed to mix those particular chemicals together," Jimenez said. "And since that explosion destroyed the beaker, you'll have to pay for its replacement."

Mercury hung his head sadly.

* * *

In McCaffrey's AP Literature class, the students were discussing the novel _The Jungle,_ prompted by the question, "What can be said about the socioeconomic conditions depicted in this novel?"

"That corporations are soulless machines run by equally soulless men who lack moral compasses," Samara replied.

"True, but does anyone care to expand on that?" McCaffrey asked.

"_The Jungle_ was Upton Sinclair's attempt to expose the crimes of the political-industrial complex," a bespectacled, plaid-skirted brunette named Willow answered. "When I say 'political-industrial complex,' I mean that the government was in the pocket of the corporations. A lot of the people that held government offices at the time passed laws that allowed the corporations to deny their workers any sense of human dignity. Socialism was presented as a way out of that, as a way of defying a corrupt capitalist system."

"What does this have to do with the practices of corporate America today?" McCaffrey asked.

"Not much has changed, honestly," Raziel stated. "With the exception of corporations like Wayne Enterprises, corporate America as a whole still has a 'profit first, human lives second' mentality. Since we have laws here that bar child labor and compel companies to pay their workers a minimum wage, many companies just move jobs overseas, where they don't have to follow those laws. Also, the government issues tax incentives for corporations that outsource their jobs. It's a sick state of affairs, honestly."

"In light of what you've read, do you think a capitalist system is a fair economic system?" McCaffrey asked.

"I think that a lot of people are only looking at the bad aspects of capitalism," a shaggy-haired boy named Dante interjected. "They're not paying attention to the ways that capitalism has helped people or the ways that socialism has harmed people."

"The reason capitalism doesn't work that well in practice is that it's based on competition and not everyone has the tools to compete," Samara stated.

"It's called survival of the fittest," Dante cut in. "If you have the intelligence and the skills, you can survive. If you don't, you can't. What do you expect us to do, mollycoddle the people that won't get off their ass and work?"

"That's a rather cruel thing to say," Willow commented. "Not to mention that people aren't always incapable of competing simply because they're lazy, as I think you're trying to say. Many of them can't because they're born into a situation that doesn't allow them the opportunity to acquire the tools to compete in a capitalist society."

"And whose fault is that?" Dante asked.

"The system's," Willow replied. "To expand on Samara's statement that not everyone has the tools to compete, we live in a hierarchical, class-based society. The higher you are on the socioeconomic ladder, the better you're able to compete. Certain people are born with all the advantages, while everyone else has to compete for whatever's left and a lot of them don't even know the rules."

"While a good number of European democracies practice capitalism, they also have the sense to realize that some people need more of a helping hand than others," Raziel interjected, "which is why they have national healthcare."

"And that's why Europe sucks," a smart aleck by the name of Frank declared.

"No, Europe doesn't suck," Samara stated. "They're just not as paranoid about 'big government' as we are here in the States."

"In _The Jungle,_ Sinclair condemned both parties as 'grafters,'" McCaffrey stated. "Would anyone like to offer their take on that?"

"He called them grafters because they were both corrupt, both in the pockets of corporate America, much like now," Willow explained.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Frank asked.

"Despite sundry attempts at reform throughout the past twenty years, the campaign finance laws still create a symbiotic relationship between corporations and the government," Willow elucidated. "The corporation gives a political candidate large sums of money to finance his or her campaign with the expectation that that candidate will make life easier for it once elected, an expectation that is often fulfilled. Say Ms. McCaffrey is running for mayor. I, a lobbyist for a corporation, give her _x_ amount of dollars, bearing in mind that _x_ is a hefty sum. Say the rest of you vote for her and she wins the election. Who do you think she really answers to?"

"Us!" Frank exclaimed. "It's because of our votes that she's in office right now and therefore she ought to listen to our concerns!"

"That's the viewpoint of a naïve twit who thinks the world is fair and just," Samara sneered. "The truth is that since Willow gave Ms. McCaffrey all that money to support her campaign, Ms. McCaffrey would be indebted to Willow and thus bound to repay that debt, usually by pushing forth policies that would favor corporations."

"You didn't have to call Mr. Goode 'a naïve twit,' Miss Roth-Wilson," McCaffrey reprimanded.

Samara just planted her chin on her palm.

* * *

Several periods later, the Titans congregated at the cafeteria for lunch.

"Boys are perverts," Beast Girl stated irritably.

"Tell me about it," Samara growled. "I swear whoever made the female gym uniforms for this school had a whole bunch of dirty schoolgirl fantasies. The shorts are so tiny that they might as well be panties . . . and the shirts are a little too tight for comfort."

"I don't mind," Nightstar remarked. "The uniforms, that is. I just wish boys didn't ogle my ass so much."

"Kinda hard not to when it looks so nice," a harsh rasping voice remarked lecherously.

Nightstar reached out and whacked the person who'd spoken upside the head. "Memnoch, you are the worst sort of lecher I've ever met."

The murderous second persona of Raziel just stared at her with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"Memnoch, you say what I think you're going to say and I'll kill you," Bladefire declared. "I swear to X'Hal that I'll kill you."

"No, you won't," Memnoch drawled, gazing at Bladefire through mussed silver bangs. "You're too much of a softy for that."

"I'll just beat you half to death, then," Bladefire remarked nonchalantly.

Memnoch moved his bangs aside and looked at the other Titans with a softer expression. "Sorry about that."

"Raziel, you mind keeping Memnoch in his cage more often?" Samara asked.

"Yeah, he's one scary guy," Mercury added.

"I try," Raziel replied. "That's why Uriel exists, to check his impulses."

"You explained it to me once, but I don't think I get it," Beast Girl said. "Memnoch's the id and Uriel's the superego?"

"If you want to get Freudian, then yes," Raziel confirmed.

"How was AP Lit, Sam?" Inferno asked.

"Fine until I called Frank Goode a naïve twit," Samara replied.

"What for?" Inferno asked.

"Because he was stupid enough to think that the world is fair and just," Samara replied.

"You're right that the world isn't fair and just, but that doesn't mean you have to call him a twit," Inferno said.

"Bet she didn't apologize," Mercury mumbled.

"Shut up, Peter," Inferno spoke. To Samara, "Did you apologize?"

"Like I had to," Samara answered.

"Sam, I like you and all, but that arrogance of yours is kind of a turn-off," Inferno stated.

"And what about me turns you _on?_" Samara asked in a deadpan but with a smirk in her eyes.

Inferno blushed. "Don't change the subject!"

The other Titans had a good laugh at Inferno's expense.

* * *

End Notes: Ok, you're probably wondering why the new Titans are attending high school when their parents didn't. I'll explain. First, I didn't want to do a rehash of the animated Titans. Second, the comic Titans (the ones that are high school age) go to high school and a lot of this story was inspired by the comics. Three, the same reason the teenaged X-Men in X-Men: Evolution went to high school: so they wouldn't lose their connection to normal humanity.

Will you see The Ravager again? Yes. In the next chapter you will see her.

By the way, for those of you that are confused about Mercury referring to himself in the first chapter as the "Shinobi of Speed," shinobi is another word for ninja. The reason he calls himself that is that he incorporates ninja techniques, particularly the ones dealing with stealth and combat, into the use of his speed powers.

For those of you wondering about Raziel's alternate personas, they will be explained in greater detail in the second arc. For now, all three of them (counting Raziel) are basically the id, ego, and superego of Freud's psychoanalytic theory.

Now you're free to tell me how much you liked or disliked this story.


	3. Ravaged: Stem

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 1: "Ravaged"

Chapter 3: "Stem"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar and Ravager are owned by DC Comics, while Mercury is owned jointly by DC and Marvel Comics. Everyone else, except for anyone you might recognize, belongs to me.

Author's note: Further down the spiral we go. Now I know some people don't like stories where the Titans go to high school because they're often cliché A/U stories that tend to focus on shipping and aren't written that well . . . perhaps because they're written by people who actually are in high school and have yet to develop the talent and perspective required to write good stories in any genre. However, this is not an A/U high school story and more focus will be given to the new Titans as crime-fighters than as high school students. The high school angle will still be there, mainly because it's necessary to humanize the Titans.

By the way, you will see just how much Nightstar and Bladefire take after their dad, although it might be more Nightstar than Bladefire.

* * *

That night, Bladefire lay on his bed, suffering from a severe case of ennui. Granted, he'd been suffering from ennui ever since Starfire died, but every so often, it got really bad.

"Feeling weary again, Joh'n?" Nightstar asked while standing at the open door.

"Yeah, I suppose I am, Mar'i," Bladefire replied.

"Go," Nightstar said. "We'll call if we need your help."

"Thanks," Bladefire replied before getting up and closing the door. He stripped off his uniform and changed into a pair of black jeans, a black sleeveless shirt, and a red vest. He hooked his Titan communicator, which was a small black rectangle with a T insignia, to his belt and flew out of Titans Tower.

* * *

Bladefire found himself at Haze, a nightclub that generally catered to teens and young adults. Inside, one could see the entire color spectrum in the frequent flashes of light. Young men and women twisted and writhed and undulated to the throbbing techno and trip-hop as the red-haired half-Tamaranean walked toward the bar.

As he walked, he felt a slender, toned arm wrap around his waist.

"Hello, Bladefire," a silky feminine voice that sounded very familiar to his ears greeted.

"Brazen little minx, aren't you?" Bladefire murmured as he shifted to face the person holding him.

She was about as tall as he was, maybe slightly taller. A black leather zip-front tank top and pants clung to her body and accented her gentle curves. A silver mesh bracelet adorned her wrist and long silver hair framed her face, concealing her left eye. Judging by her facial features, she seemed to be in her early twenties.

"I am," she remarked with a slow smile. "Dance with me?"

Bladefire gazed into her one exposed blue eye. "I don't see why not."

The two moved to the music, the silver-haired girl leaning on him as he embraced her. While they danced, two impulses warred in Bladefire's mind. One impulse was to push her away and flee. The other impulse was to hold her closer, mold himself to her completely.

The first impulse was born of years of subtly distancing himself from others. The second impulse was born of a desire for closeness, for the intimacy that he had spent years denying himself.

"How do you know me?" Bladefire asked softly.

"Everyone knows you," the silver-haired girl replied impishly.

"I'm not in my Titan outfit," Bladefire said. "How did you know it was me?"

"You're the only red-haired guy I know of who wears his hair like Himura Kenshin from _Rurouni Kenshin,_" the silver-haired girl answered.

"You like vintage animé, too?" Bladefire inquired.

"One of the few pleasures I allow myself," the silver-haired girl responded with a smile.

"I think I like you," Bladefire murmured as he nestled his head in the crook of her neck. "You smell wonderful."

"And I don't even use perfume," the silver-haired girl remarked.

"What's your name?" Bladefire asked.

"Rose," the silver-haired girl replied.

"Apropos," Bladefire remarked.

At that moment, Bladefire's communicator bleeped. He pulled away from Rose and removed the communicator from his belt, flipping it open. "Bladefire here."

"We've got trouble, Blade," Nightstar's image spoke in the mini-screen of the communicator. "Some neo-Nazi freak jobs are holding a synagogue hostage and they've got the infrastructure rigged up with bombs. Here are the coordinates." Nightstar's image vanished, replaced by a digital map of the synagogue and the surrounding area. "Get here as soon as you can."

"Will do," Bladefire answered. "Bladefire out." He closed the communicator.

"So paramilitary," Rose remarked.

"I've gotta go, Rose," Bladefire said. "It was nice dancing with you, but –"

"Go. Save some innocents," Rose stated.

"Will I see you again?" Bladefire asked.

"I'll find you," Rose replied. "Go."

Bladefire left Haze and changed into his Titan uniform, flying to the coordinates Nightstar gave him.

* * *

"Good thing you're here," Raziel stated.

"I hate these guys," Inferno snarled. "If there's anyone in the world I can honestly claim to hate, it's assholes like them."

"So what's going on?" Bladefire asked.

"It's like I said," Nightstar replied. "Neo-Nazi lunatics are holding that synagogue across from us hostage."

"Why aren't we going in and taking them out?" Bladefire asked.

"Mercury's on recon," Nightstar replied.

At that moment, the Sapphire Speedster – as the press had taken to nicknaming Mercury due to his mostly blue outfit – returned from recon.

"What did you see?" Nightstar asked.

"Neo-Nazi a-holes at all possible entrances and exits with loaded shotguns," Mercury replied. "Their leader's at the head with a rifle pointed at the people inside. There's even a sniper hidden at one of the windows and I think they put him there to kill anyone who even thinks of approaching this place."

"So how do we get in?" Beast Girl asked.

"I go in and take them all out myself," Mercury replied. "I'm the only one here fast enough to get past the sniper. The rest of you would get picked off."

"Noble sentiment, but this is a team effort," Nightstar contradicted. She looked at Raziel. "You think you can take out the guys at the front entrance?"

Raziel pulled out two dice and flicked them at the two armed men at the front entrance. An instant later, both of them were down for the count with blood pouring out of their wounds.

"They'll live," he stated. "I deliberately missed their vitals . . . and I don't think they'll lose enough blood to die."

"Stick to the shadows," Nightstar ordered. "And spread out."

The Titans spread out into the shadows, taking out the neo-Nazis guarding the entrances and exits from outside. A tiger's claws tore through guns and body armor to shred much more vulnerable flesh. Invisible blades cut through guns and shredded vertebrae without leaving a mark on the clothing, flesh, and muscle above. Preternaturally speedy hands dismantled shotguns and beat their wielders into submission. Flames melted guns and burning hands knocked their owners unconscious. A simple psychic suggestion put the gunmen to sleep, while whips and blades cut through guns and well-placed nerve strikes knocked their holders unconscious.

With that over with, the teen heroes busted into the synagogue, Nightstar's first act being to grab the neo-Nazi thugs at the door and bash their heads together, thus knocking them out.

"Goddamn alien bitch!" the leader yelled. He pointed his shotgun at a rabbi's head. "You or your freak friends come any closer and I'll put so many damn bullets in this kyke's head that they'll only be able to ID him by his prints!"

"And what makes you think one of us can't move or think faster than those bullets?" Nightstar asked.

"You just try it!" the leader yelled. "Try it and see what happens to these people!"

The grand irony was that while this exchange was happening, the Titans all had guns pointed at them.

"Guns," Samara remarked contemptuously. "That's your solution to everything. Get a gun and blow someone's head off. That's why people like you no longer have power in this country. You're nothing but a bunch of brutes that rely on intimidation and violence to achieve your ends."

"Shut up, you hell-spawned whore!" a gun-toting neo-Nazi yelled.

An instant later, a black aura engulfed the neo-Nazi's gun and broke it into its separate components. The surprised neo-Nazi looked at Samara's glowing white eyes with horror.

"Don't call me a whore," she spat.

"Kill them!" the leader shouted.

"Actually, you can't," Mercury said.

"Why not, punk?" the leader asked defiantly.

"Because I spent all this time screwing with your guns so you couldn't use them on us or the people attending services here," Mercury replied. "Go ahead, try to shoot. See what happens."

"What are you doing?" Inferno asked in a whisper.

"Relax, man, I got this," Mercury whispered back.

"Stupid white-haired punk thinks he can scare us," the leader grumbled. He pressed the trigger on his rifle . . . and the rifle exploded in his hands. "Ahhh! Goddamn son of a bitch!"

"So will you gentlemen – and I use this term very loosely – surrender, or will we have to use force?" Nightstar asked.

"I say you can kiss your ass good-bye, alien!" a neo-Nazi shouted, pulling out a smaller handgun he'd hidden underneath his pants leg and pointing it at Nightstar's head. He never got the chance to shoot her, though, as the window suddenly shattered and the neo-Nazi fell dead with a kunai in his head.

The other neo-Nazis went insane and attempted to fire their weapons at the Titans, only for those weapons to malfunction. Some merely misfired, failing to discharge a bullet. Others backfired, actually bursting when their holders attempted to shoot. As a result, they were easily taken care of by the Titans.

"It's ok," Bladefire said to the terrified attendees of the synagogue. "You're safe now."

"Wait," Beast Girl said. "Where'd Nightstar go?"

* * *

The Ravager leaped across rooftops, evading her pursuer . . . or leading her into a trap. Nightstar wasn't sure, but she didn't care very much.

The assassin finally stopped at a neon-lit rooftop that bathed her in electric violet light. Nightstar landed in front of her.

"Were you following us?" she asked.

"Yes," The Ravager replied.

"Why?" Nightstar asked.

"To kill you," Ravager answered.

"If you wanted us dead, then why didn't you let that neo-Nazi blow my head off?" Nightstar asked.

"Because you're mine to kill, Nightstar," Ravager responded. "_Mine._ Besides, if you die and I'm not the one that does you in, then I don't get my payment."

"Just about the money, huh?" Nightstar remarked. "So you're not another psycho who has it in for us. You're just a greedy bitch."

"There's more to me than you think," The Ravager stated, drawing her sword.

Nightstar lashed at Ravager with her energy whip, but the assassin caught the whip with her sword blade and used it to pull Nightstar to her, viciously knee-jabbing her in her exposed stomach and throwing her at the neon sign. The Titan leader collided with the tall neon S and the bulbs shattered, the shards and lit metal pieces scratching and embedding themselves inside her exposed back.

"Not a very good idea to wear such skimpy clothes," Ravager commented, "even if those shorts do wonders for your legs."

Nightstar got up with a very incensed expression. A purple wave of power issued forth from her eyes and struck Ravager dead in the midsection, the force knocking her off the rooftop. Worried that the assassin might have fallen to her death, the half-Tamaranean flew to the edge of the rooftop and looked over it, only to find Ravager clinging to it. The assassin swung herself up into an acrobatic flip that brought her back up to face Nightstar.

"Don't worry about me," she said. "I've survived worse than your optic blasts."

The Ravager sheathed her sword and launched herself into a flying kick that knocked Nightstar onto her already injured back. Nightstar bit her teeth to prevent herself from crying out in pain. There was no way she would give The Ravager the satisfaction of hearing her pain. Instead, she got up and launched herself into the air, coming down with a flurry of fierce flying kicks. It took everything the young mercenary had to block them at all and a few managed to breach her defenses.

Finally, Nightstar spun and clocked Ravager with a particularly brutal kick, wrenching her head around by slightly more than ninety degrees.

The Titan leader gazed upon her work in horror, a horror that increased when Ravager reached up and casually twisted her head back into its proper position.

"What do I keep telling you, Nightstar?" she asked. "It really hurts when you do that to me . . . but maybe you like hurting me."

"No," Nightstar protested firmly.

"You like it, don't you?" Ravager went on. "Hurting me. Hurting the 'bad guys.' But I know who you really want to hurt. The people who killed your mom. The people who made it so that you would never see her smile, never see her eyes light up when she looked at you again." As the assassin spoke, Nightstar heard something she'd never before heard in her voice.

Anguish.

"Believe me . . . I know the feeling," The Ravager whispered harshly.

"How do you know this?" Nightstar asked.

"I did my research," The Ravager replied, returning to her pose of cool arrogance.

"I don't care what you know," Nightstar growled. "I'm not like you. I don't hurt people because I like it."

"Yes, but you have the instinct in you," Ravager retorted. "The rage. Deep down, you and I are so very much alike."

"_I'm nothing like you!_" Nightstar yelled and came at the assassin with such fury that even she was taken aback. Ravager blocked as many of Nightstar's attacks as she could, but Nightstar was coming at her too fast for her to block completely. While an ordinary opponent would have been horrified by Nightstar's strength and intensity, Ravager reveled in it.

"Yes! Yes!" Ravager shouted. "Come on! Show me that rage, Nightstar! Show me! Show me my kindred spirit!"

She was finally laid low by a brutal punch to the jaw. "I'm no kindred spirit of yours," Nightstar stated coldly before flying away to rejoin the other Titans.

* * *

Later, Nightstar lay on her front in the infirmary as Samara telekinetically removed the bulb shards from her back.

"Where do you get off going after The Ravager by yourself?" she asked, pulling out one bulb shard harder than necessary.

Nightstar winced. "She killed that guy, Samara."

"Said guy being an utter racist bastard who would have killed you just for being half alien," Samara answered.

"So should I have let her get away?" Nightstar asked irritably.

"No," Samara replied. "But you should have remembered your own advice to Mercury: 'This is a team effort.'" She removed the last shard. "She did a number on you, all right."

"It doesn't hurt that bad," Nightstar said.

"Quit playing tough and let me heal you," Samara grumbled. She laid her hands on Nightstar's wounded back and purple energy passed into the wound, sealing the cuts and peeling away the burned skin, revealing perfectly healthy golden bronze skin.

"Ah, I feel better now," Nightstar murmured. "But my back still feels a little sore."

"I'll take care of that," Samara whispered and began to rub Nightstar's back, eliciting a sigh of contentment from her leader.

"You have . . . such wonderful hands," the half-Tamaranean girl murmured. "Inferno's gonna love you."

To her credit, Samara didn't stop her backrub. "What gave you that impression?"

"Nothing," Nightstar replied in a singsong voice. "A girl just knows these things."

Samara didn't reply to that, instead continuing to massage Nightstar's back.

* * *

Some days later, the Titans – except for Nightstar, who was hanging out with Lian Harper, alias the Red Hood, in Star City – received a message on their communicators.

"Meet me at the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum," a distorted voice said.

So the six Titans found themselves on the rooftop of Metropolitan Museum and staring at the back of a person who seemed to be more shadow than human. The gender was uncertain, but the curvature of the person's hips and rear led the Titans to believe it was a woman.

"Shouldn't we have called Nightstar?" Beast Girl asked.

"She and Red Hood are hanging out," Bladefire replied. "Girl stuff. Don't want to interrupt them."

"Besides," Inferno added, "we can handle ourselves while she's away."

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to talk amongst yourselves when someone is present?" the shadowy person asked, the distorted voice coming off feminine enough to convince the Titans that this was a woman with whom they were dealing. She turned around, revealing that she was dressed in black motorcycle leathers – a jacket, pants, gloves, and boots – with a black mask concealing her face. The interesting thing about that mask was that a scarlet bird emblem adorned the front and a black ponytail stuck out of the back.

"Who are you and why did you call us here?" Bladefire asked.

"So sorry," the leather-clad woman replied. "I'm Rubyhawk and I'm going to kill you." As she spoke, she removed a silver rod from a holster on her belt and a line of black light extended from it. She swung the rod and the attached light line lashed at the Titans like a whip. Bladefire raised his bracelet-encased wrist to block the attack, only to be painfully burned by the touch of the whip-like laser weapon.

"Titans Together!" Bladefire shouted as the six Titans converged on Rubyhawk, only to be brutally beaten one by one.

The first was Mercury. He ran at Rubyhawk, only to skid to a nasty fall off the rooftop.

"Mercury!" Beast Girl shouted. "What did you do?"

"Frictionless surface," Rubyhawk replied. "A person's connection to the Speed Force may enable him or her to defy the effects of friction, but attempting to move that fast on a frictionless surface causes rather bad things like falls to happen to them."

Beast Girl lunged at Rubyhawk in the form of a panther, only to be hit by a capsular grenade that released a gooey red substance upon exploding. The explosion knocked Beast Girl down and the substance kept her stuck on the rooftop. She shifted into a rhinoceros to break out of the substance by sheer force, but the substance held fast. She next shifted into a mockingbird and attempted to fly, but the substance once again held fast. Her other forms, even her hybrid forms, encountered the same lack of success.

"If Mercury's dead, so are you," Inferno stated, launching himself into a burning corkscrew kick. Rubyhawk raised her forearm to block, only to pull it back in pain from the heat of the impact. She retaliated with a laser whiplash that he blocked with his crossed arms. However, she seemed to have anticipated that and took the opportunity to sneak in another capsular grenade. This one released a web-like flame retardant that trapped him as effectively as the other grenade had Beast Girl.

Dice, marbles, and darts flew at Rubyhawk at bullet-like speeds and to Raziel's surprise . . . she dodged them all with an ease of motion that could belong only to the best acrobats and gymnasts in the world.

Raziel and Bladefire double-teamed Rubyhawk, Bladefire coming at her with a flying kick and Raziel going low with his kick. Rubyhawk jumped over Raziel's kick and wrapped her arm around Bladefire's ankle at almost the same moment, throwing the redhead aside and aiming a punch at Raziel's jaw. Raziel grabbed her fist and spun, adding his force to hers and throwing her down on the roof. Rubyhawk rolled out of the way of a flying punch that struck the rooftop.

Bladefire pulled his fist away from the indentation he'd made and cracked his knuckles. He summoned his energy blade and slashed at Rubyhawk, who blocked with her laser weapon . . . the light end of which was now a blade. The duo clashed, their respective blades sparking as they struck each other. Of course, it turned out that Rubyhawk didn't believe in playing fair, as she threw a flash-bang grenade in his face in the middle of their swordfight, blinding him momentarily. That moment turned out to be more than enough time for Rubyhawk to take him down for the count with a few well-placed sword strikes.

"That was dishonorable, underhanded, and ruthless," Raziel snarled.

"Do you expect all your enemies to play fair?" Rubyhawk asked. "Naïve boy."

Raziel and Samara tag-teamed Rubyhawk with bullet-like darts and psychic bolts, only for Rubyhawk to flip out of the way. Samara attempted to grab the leather-clad woman with a psychic claw but Rubyhawk moved out of the way. She flipped out of the way and off the rooftop.

"What the hell is she doing?" Samara asked in confused horror.

The next thing she knew, something shaped like a sharp C landed over her eye and a terrible pain lacerated her mind, preventing any coherent thought. Next to her, Raziel had collapsed in the same agony.

A blue-and-white blur suddenly slammed into Rubyhawk _hard,_ knocking her off the rooftop. The blur raced to the edge of the rooftop and stopped, revealing itself to be Mercury. Fearful that he might have killed Rubyhawk by accident, he looked over the edge of the rooftop . . . only to find that she had disappeared.

* * *

Elsewhere, Rubyhawk was making her escape across the rooftops when she got the feeling someone was following her. She turned around and stared into the masked face of her shadow.

"Why are you following me?" she asked.

"I'm surprised that someone else would try to kill the Titans," The Ravager replied.

"What, like you're the only mercenary who's allowed to take up a contract on those twerps?" Rubyhawk asked.

"No," Ravager replied. "I'm just surprised someone as green as you would try it."

"And how long have you been at it?" Rubyhawk asked. "Three years?"

"I see you've done your research," Ravager remarked.

"If I'm really so green, then I ought to learn from you, right?" Rubyhawk suggested. "Since you are _the_ assassin according to my sources."

"You want to be my student?" Ravager asked. "Sounds good to me. Just one test."

"I'm up to it," Rubyhawk replied.

* * *

That night, a young man named Will Daniels sat at his favorite booth in a restaurant. He was celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday the same way he had celebrated his birthdays since turning eighteen, with an escort and a trio of well-armed guards surrounding him.

He had the life. His father was a wealthy crime lord and he spoiled his son in what could only be construed as an attempt to buy the young man's love. Anything he wanted, he got. He wanted straight A's? Daddy bought the school state-of-the-art computer equipment. He wanted a date? Daddy bought the prettiest escort in town.

Yes, it was good to be Will Daniels.

Until some maniac on a tricked-out street bike burst into the restaurant through the plate-glass window, shattering it. The aforementioned maniac leaped off the street bike and flipped gracefully onto her feet.

Yes. _Her_ feet.

Will looked at the mysterious intruder even as everyone around him, save for his guards, were beside themselves with terror. Black motorcycle leathers molded to the curves of her athletic frame and a black mask with a red bird emblem over where her eyes should be and a ponytail sticking out of the back covered her face.

"Who the hell are you, you crazy bitch?" Will asked.

The masked woman didn't answer that, instead withdrawing a silver rod from the holster on her belt.

"Oh, who cares?" Will decided. He looked at his guards. "Take her out!"

The guards pulled out their guns and opened fire on the masked woman, who somersaulted and twirled and flipped out of the way of the hail of bullets. She thumbed the rod and a black line of light emerged from one end, striking the guards like a whip. The whip-like black light knocked the guns out of their hands and sliced them across their chests. The guards collapsed on the floor, unmoving.

"What is this?" Will asked. The young man turned to run, but the masked woman caught him with her whip-like laser weapon. "What do you want with me?"

The masked woman didn't answer that.

"Who are you?" Will asked.

"Rubyhawk," the masked woman spoke, her voice distorted, and that was the last thing Will heard before blackness overcame his vision.

* * *

"Excellent work," The Ravager complimented. "You do have promise, but your technique could use a little polishing. Honestly, so could mine."

"Then we'll help each other," Rubyhawk answered.

"Partners?" Ravager asked as she extended her hand.

"Partners," Rubyhawk confirmed as she took her hand.

* * *

End Notes: And that is where I'm ending it. Don't want it dragging on and turning out bad.

So far, people seem to like this story. I know there was a complaint about Tim Drake being Batman instead of Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond. The explanation is that this story takes place in the year 2030 and Batman Beyond took place approximately forty or fifty years after its debut, meaning that it would have been ten or twenty years before Terry could become Batman. Richard couldn't be Batman because he'd resolved to live something close to a normal life with his family. Tim was basically the only one available who was the right age to be Batman and he already had the detective skills for it. Speaking of Batmen, you might very well see another candidate for the mantle emerge in one of the one-shot or two-part "between arcs" stories I'm thinking up.

In case you're wondering about Rubyhawk, think of "Masks" and you'll figure out who she is really quickly.

I probably gave away Ravager's identity in the scene in which Bladefire was out clubbing, but you won't notice unless you paid attention to Ravager's unmasking in the first chapter.

You're now free to let me know what you think about this chapter.


	4. Ravaged: Bud

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 1: "Ravaged"

Chapter 4: "Bud"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics. Nightstar, Ravager, and Mercury do not belong to me, either; Nightstar and Ravager are owned by DC Comics and Mercury is owned jointly by Marvel and DC Comics. Except for anyone that you might recognize from DC Comics, everyone else is my creation.

Author's note: A reviewer said that this story belongs in the Comics – Teen Titans section of instead of the Cartoons – Teen Titans section. This story is set in the animated continuity, which is why it is here instead of in the Comics category's Teen Titans section. The reviewer also said that he didn't even know who some of the characters are. With the exception of Nightstar, Ravager, and Mercury, these are original characters. You're not supposed to know who they are, but if you keep reading, you'll learn more about them.

If anyone liked the fight with Rubyhawk, take heed. You'll see more of her, including her secret.

* * *

"I should have been there," Nightstar said.

"Bet your ass you should've been there!" Beast Girl yelled. "Look at my hair!" She pointed to her blonde locks, which had been cut short with jagged edges due to the fact that Mercury couldn't quite get the gunk out of her hair.

"You actually look kinda cute like that," Mercury remarked.

"You really think so?" Beast Girl asked.

"Yeah," Mercury replied. "Would I lie to you?"

"You fibbed about not knowing where my panties went," Beast Girl mentioned.

"Memnoch dared me into it!" Mercury protested.

"Uh-huh," Beast Girl droned. "And if he dared you to jump off a cliff, you'd do it?"

"Well, it's either jump to my death or be sliced up and shot," Mercury answered.

"This conversation is getting highly disturbing," Samara remarked, holding an ice pack to her forehead. "Twice in a week I've been slapped with an anti-psi weapon. Where do they get those things?"

"From the black market," Bladefire replied. "Either that or they swipe it from the government."

"What would the government be doing with anti-psi weapons?" Mercury asked.

"You are one naïve kid," Inferno remarked. "Don't you know that the government doesn't really trust superheroes? They let us operate without incident most of the time, but they've probably got contingency plans in case they feel we've become a threat."

"Oh," Mercury uttered.

"It wouldn't have made a difference if you were there," Raziel stated. "I'm certain Rubyhawk would have bested you as well."

"I still feel guilty, though," Nightstar replied.

"There is one thing that bothers me, though," Raziel continued.

"What is it?" Bladefire asked.

"Her moves," Raziel replied. "They were very familiar. Her style of fighting reminded me of someone."

"Who?" Samara asked.

"I don't know," Raziel admitted. "I don't know _yet._ I'll have to fight her again to be certain."

"Well, don't go looking for a fight with her," Nightstar cautioned. "She's dangerous."

"Onto a more pleasant subject," Raziel said. "Mar'i, how was your visit with Lian?"

"It was cool," Nightstar replied. "We hung out, smacked around a few thugs, and pigged out on ice cream."

"And that's all?" Raziel asked, his voice becoming harsher and carrying a lecherous tone with it.

"What are you thinking, Memnoch?" Nightstar asked in irritation. "That Lian and I 'experiment' with each other when we get together?"

"She flirts with you often enough," Memnoch answered with a smirk.

"She flirts with damn near everyone, male or female," Nightstar stated.

"Hey, can't a guy have his fantasies?" Memnoch asked calmly, or as calmly as a maniac like him could.

His posture suddenly changed, shifting from a slouch to an upright position in his seat. His eyes sharpened, revealing chilling intellect and logic instead of savagery and lechery.

"Sorry about him," he spoke in a monotone.

"Hello, Uriel," Nightstar greeted.

"How do you keep track of all those personalities?" Mercury asked.

"If you pay attention to the subtle shifts in his posture and body language, you can tell which personality is in charge," Nightstar replied.

"This is all . . . quite suspicious," Uriel stated. "Rubyhawk attacked us while there were only six of us. Her weapon was essentially the same as yours, minus the sword option."

"What are you saying?" Nightstar asked.

"Nothing at all, dear Mar'i," Uriel responded. "Nothing at all." His demeanor changed once again, becoming softer and gentler.

"Raziel," Nightstar spoke. "Dive with me?"

* * *

The next day, the Titans found themselves going to school. This time, they moved quickly and silently, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible so that their fans wouldn't spot them and hound them for autographs.

The day proceeded normally for the most part, the only disturbance being at gym class with Beast Girl and Mercury. The students were playing tennis.

"Why do I have to play tennis?" Mercury asked as he swatted the tennis ball.

"Coach says it'll teach us how to think on our feet," Schuyler replied as he struck the tennis ball.

Mercury merely swatted the tennis ball again. "This is so boring."

"Of course you're bored," Schuyler remarked. "You can move and think at hypersonic speeds, if not the speed of light itself. Of course it'll be boring for you."

"And you know how?" Mercury asked as he hit the ball again.

"I do my research," Schuyler answered. "Besides, my older brother is a huge fan of speedsters, particularly the female ones."

"You know, it's kinda disturbing to think that he might have pictures of my cousin on his wall," Mercury commented.

"Not just Kid Flash," Schuyler said. "He's also got Jesse and Jenny Quick."

Mercury smacked the ball again . . . only to find that he'd smacked it too hard and now it was flying toward the head of a very oblivious Beast Girl.

"Terri!" Mercury screamed and reached out toward the ball, draining the kinetic energy from it before it could hit her. The ball harmlessly dropped in front of Beast Girl and the silver-haired speedster jogged over to her to retrieve it. "Hi."

"Hi," Beast Girl greeted. "What'cha doing here?"

"I just hit the ball too hard," Mercury replied, "and it landed here. Wanted to come pick it up." He picked up the ball. "I'll see you later."

He jogged back to Schuyler, but as he did, he heard Beast Girl's opponent Clarissa remark, "Damn, he is fine."

Mercury blushed at hearing that, only for that blush to deepen when he heard Beast Girl growl, "Keep your eyes off his ass. It's mine."

"That was slekkin' cool, man!" Schuyler exclaimed.

"What was?" Mercury asked.

"You stole that ball's speed!" Schuyler exclaimed. "I've never seen someone do that before!"

"It's no big deal," Mercury stated nonchalantly. "Let's play."

* * *

At lunch, Inferno didn't eat, choosing to type in his laptop instead.

"Why aren't you eating?" Samara asked.

"I'm too mad to eat," Inferno replied.

"What's got you so pissed you can't eat?" Samara asked.

"The school administration is talking about shutting down the newsletter," Inferno replied. "Something to do with the budget. They're probably going to divert the money from the newsletter to the basketball team. Assholes."

Samara looked over his shoulder. "So you're writing a protest letter. Good for you, but do you need to refer to them as 'bottom-feeding bum buddies of the athletic upper class'?"

"I feel it gets my point across," Inferno answered.

"Maybe, but you won't win any hearts and minds by insulting them," Samara chided.

Inferno sighed. "I know. It just makes me so mad that the administration thinks that a bunch of empty-headed jocks running around throwing balls in hoops is more important than getting information out to the student body."

"Think about it, Jeremiah," Samara said. "Student athletes make a lot of money for the school. Politically oriented newsletters . . . not so much. And you know how adults like to think that people our age don't give a crap about politics."

"A lot of them don't," Inferno admitted.

"True, but that's no reason for them to write off the entire generation," Samara added.

Inferno sighed and resumed typing. The completed letter read something like this:

"To the school board:

"I am writing to you in the hopes of convincing you to reverse your impending cancellation of our newsletter. You may believe that young people do not care about what's going on in the world, in the nation, or even their own city. The truth is that the mainstream news media is not speaking to their concerns. As a result, young people see the news as an abstract thing that has no effect on their daily lives. The newsletter provides young people with a voice, with an outlet for their concerns, and demonstrates that the news affects them as well. If you shut down the newsletter, you will have cut the students of this high school off from one of the few sources of news that comes from the viewpoint of someone who shares their concerns. I sincerely ask you to take all that I've written into account when you make your final decision. Thank you for reading this message.

"Signed, Jeremiah Crockett."

"Better," Samara remarked. "Not a single insult to be found."

"You think they won't delete it before or after reading it?" Inferno asked.

"Not if they have any sense of dignity or compassion for the young," Samara answered.

Inferno exhaled and sent the e-mail. At that moment, the other five Titans joined them.

"Hey, Jeremiah, why aren't ya eating?" Beast Girl asked.

"I'm pissed," Inferno replied. "Not as pissed as I was before, but I'm still pissed."

"So earlier you were 'ready to light somebody's ass on fire' mad and now you're just 'gonna be kinda bitter all day' mad, right?" Mercury reasoned.

"They're considering canceling the newsletter," Inferno explained. "Just because the athletics department makes more money for the school than supplementing the students' education doesn't mean they have to cancel the newsletter."

"Not to mention that the basketball team they might be diverting the funds to is the boys' team," Nightstar added. "I hate that. I mean, the boys' team can screw around all semester long and get away with it, but they're ready to suspend the girls' team for getting C's."

"It's called a double standard," Raziel remarked. "An unfair state of affairs, but what do you expect when much more attention and status is lavished upon the male athletes?"

Bladefire wasn't actually paying attention to the conversation, as he was busy listening to his wrist-worn music player. However, he did have a small bit to contribute.

"Ever consider that this is just a small-scale reenactment of what goes on the outside world?" he asked. "I mean, nobody gives a damn about what the scholars do, but everyone follows the athletes and can name at least three famous players from each sport."

"He has a point," Nightstar remarked.

"What are you listening to?" Mercury asked.

"Ghostslayer," Bladefire replied before turning up the music player to the extent that he wouldn't be able to hear anyone's voice unless they shouted.

* * *

Several days and nights passed and there had been no sign of The Ravager or Rubyhawk. During those days, Raziel had begun to notice Nightstar acting oddly. It seemed that she would disappear after nightly patrols. When he asked her about it, she just told him she'd been training by herself.

It worried him. It worried him greatly.

One night on patrol, he'd shared his suspicions with Samara.

"So you noticed, too," she had remarked before he'd had the opportunity to speak.

"Yes," Raziel confirmed. "She doesn't spend as much time with us as she used to. Either she's disappearing after patrol or she's locking herself in her room investigating The Ravager."

"Where does she go after patrol?" Samara wondered.

"I tried tracking her through her communicator, but all I found was decoy signals," Raziel mentioned. "Wherever she goes after patrol, she apparently doesn't want us following her there."

"Reading her emotions has yielded nothing," Samara added. "Her mind is too closed, too closely guarded."

"And my ability to read souls doesn't work on someone actively trying to guard their secrets," Raziel stated. "But what secrets is she guarding from m – I mean, us?"

"I don't know," Samara replied. "But we'll find out. I just hope it's nothing serious."

"Same," Raziel agreed.

Just then, they got a call on their communicators. Samara flipped hers open. "Samara here."

"There's been a break-in in the tech sector," Bladefire said.

"Where's Nightstar?" Raziel asked.

"She disappeared again," Bladefire replied grimly. "I'm already on my way. Get here as soon as you can."

"On our way," Samara spoke. "Samara out."

* * *

The Titans – minus Nightstar – congregated inside a laboratory that contained specialized and experimental computer technologies.

"Mercury, recon," Bladefire ordered softly. "Beast Girl, do you smell anyone in here?"

Beast Girl sniffed the air. "Two people. Both female. Scent of leather. They both smell familiar, but one of them's done her best to mask it."

Mercury came back from his super-speed reconnaissance. "Didn't see anyone, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were lying in wait for us."

At that moment, Raziel caught the glint of metal in his eye. "Guys . . ."

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Inferno concluded.

"Damn straight," a familiar distorted voice confirmed, a serpentine black light lashing at the fire-starter, who cried out in pain upon the light striking him.

"Inferno!" Samara exclaimed. "Azarath . . . Terra . . . Infernum!" Flame-like wisps of black light emanated from her and lunged at Inferno's attacker, who merely danced out of the way and lashed at her with her laser whip. Raziel knocked Samara out of the way and grabbed the whip with his exposed hand, withstanding the pain of the laser long enough for him to pull its wielder into the light.

"Rubyhawk," Raziel uttered.

"That's me, babe," Rubyhawk confirmed.

Meanwhile, The Ravager was battling Bladefire, Beast Girl, and Mercury. Bladefire flung energy knives at her, but she leaped and ricocheted around the room, staying out of the way of those blades. Beast Girl jumped down on her as a green silverback gorilla, but Ravager slid between her legs and trapped her with a set of bolas. Beast Girl merely transformed into a serpent and slithered up Ravager's body, aiming for the empty triangle that exposed the assassin's cleavage.

Ravager smirked. "Nice try, shifter." She grabbed Beast Girl by her middle and threw her a considerable distance. Beast Girl simply morphed into a tigress and slashed at Ravager, who merely caught Beast Girl by her forelegs and flipped her off her with her legs. Beast Girl landed on her paws and came at her as a harpy, kicking her with her talons.

"You're better than I give you credit for," the assassin hissed as she pulled three darts out of her belt and threw them at the shape-changer. Beast Girl managed to evade two of them but the third struck her in the wing.

"Beast Girl!" Mercury shouted as he saw her fall to the ground and shift back into human form, the dart in her arm. He ran to her and pulled the dart out.

"That third dart was dipped in tranquilizer," Ravager stated. "She won't be getting up for a while."

Mercury snarled and began fighting Ravager, his punches and kicks striking her with the force of concrete bricks due to the speed with which he delivered them. Ravager's reflexes and reaction time were good enough to allow her to block a good deal of them, but the blows kept coming faster and faster. Finally, she pulled out a knife and slipped inside his guard, stabbing him in the gut.

Bladefire charged at Ravager and slashed her with his energy sword. Ravager flipped over him and slashed at him from behind, but he raised his blade and caught hers without looking.

"Impressive, Blade," Ravager remarked with a note of affection in her voice.

The half-Tamaranean whirled and slashed at her again, but she jumped over his blade and kicked him into a wall.

"This has actually been quite pleasant for me," Ravager admitted. "You Titans give me more fun than I've had with my other targets."

Bladefire let loose with an optic blast that the assassin merely leaped over.

Rubyhawk and Raziel continued their fight, Rubyhawk lashing at Raziel with her laser whip and Raziel dodging. Raziel knew well enough that she was just waiting for him to get tired and slip so that she could strike him. He decided he wasn't going to give her that opportunity.

As he dodged, Raziel pulled out a handful of marbles and dice and injected them with enough of his psychic aura to transform them into deadly bullets. He threw them all at Rubyhawk, who dodged them all, only to get an unpleasant surprise when the marbles and dice ricocheted off the walls and came at her again.

"What is this?" she asked as she performed complicated acrobatic maneuver after complicated acrobatic maneuver to evade the psychic bullets.

"Something I've been working on for quite a while," Raziel replied. "Homing bullets. They lock on the unique aura that every person gives off and continue following that specific target until they reach him or her or are stopped."

Rubyhawk pulled out her laser weapon and shifted it into a sword, deflecting the homing bullets to the best of her ability. Despite this, one such bullet struck the red bird emblem that covered her eyes with such force that it shattered, revealing shockingly familiar emerald eyes.

"I hoped it wasn't you," Raziel stated sadly. "I hoped it wasn't. But those acrobatic maneuvers confirmed my suspicions . . . Mar'i."

"So you know," "Rubyhawk" stated, the voice distorter still working inside her mask. She reached behind her head and cracked the seal of the helmet open, pulling it away from her face . . . the face of Mar'i Grayson.

The Titans, the ones that were still conscious and able to fight, looked at Nightstar/Rubyhawk with expressions of confusion and betrayal. The Ravager, on the other hand, didn't look surprised or shocked at all. To the contrary, she was smiling.

"Nightstar," Ravager purred. "What a joy it is to see the lady behind the mask at last."

"You don't sound surprised," Nightstar answered as she undid her ponytail, letting her black locks flow down her back.

"Of course not," Ravager replied. "I knew it was you from the moment I saw you fight. I just wanted to see how far you'd go to get to me . . . and you've performed quite well. Now shall we take out your friends together, or have you thrown down your gauntlet against me?"

Nightstar's response was an optic blast, which Ravager deflected with the flat of her blade.

"So you're willing to throw away everything we shared just to go back to your friends?" Ravager asked. "I'm hurt, Nightstar. I thought we had something special."

"We have nothing, Ravager," Nightstar replied.

"I understand," Ravager said. "I'll go." She began making her way upstairs toward the roof access of the lab.

"She's getting away!" Nightstar exclaimed. "Come on!" She looked back at her teammates, only to face cold, stony expressions. "Fine, then." She ran after Ravager by herself, following her up the stairway to the roof access. By the time she reached her, her motorcycle jacket had come undone, revealing the more familiar wing-emblazoned crop top.

* * *

"So it comes to this," Ravager stated as the two young women faced off. "We could have been so good together."

"I don't work with selfish, greedy assassins," Nightstar snarled.

"A noble sentiment," The Ravager ruminated. "But fighting your friends? Brutalizing a crime lord's son on my orders? Accepting instruction from an assassin? All to entrap me? Not very noble, Mar'i. Two wrongs never make a right."

"Don't lecture me!" Nightstar yelled as she lashed at the masked assassin with her energy whip. "You're not my mother!"

Ravager merely moved her head out of the way of the energy whip and drew her sword again. She rushed at Nightstar and slashed her exposed stomach. To her credit, the Titan leader didn't cry out in pain. Instead, she retaliated by slicing through Ravager's sword with her energy whip.

The assassin dropped the stump that was once her sword. "That sword was a precious gift from my sensei. You will pay for breaking it." She reached into her belt and withdrew a small dark gray rod, pressing the button that extended the rod into a full-sized quarterstaff. She rushed at Nightstar and struck her in her wounded stomach with the quarterstaff, forcing her to grit her teeth to keep from crying out.

Nightstar swept her leg out and kicked Ravager's feet out from under her, causing her to fall on her back. Ravager merely swung her leg up and kicked Nightstar in the stomach, this time succeeding in eliciting a cry of pain from her. Nightstar rolled on the roof and to her feet, launching herself into a flying kick. Ravager caught her ankle and slammed her down onto the ground, subsequently pinning her.

Nightstar kicked Ravager off her and lashed her viciously with her energy whip, leaving a gruesome lesion on the exposed portion of her face. The wound bled a little before it sealed itself.

"You made me bleed," The Ravager uttered, smiling. "And you said you didn't like hurting me."

The half-Tamaranean girl lashed at Ravager again with her whip, but the sword-wielder caught it and pulled her toward her, slamming her knee into Nightstar's stomach. The wound, which had only started to heal, opened once again. Ravager proceeded to perform a judo toss that landed Nightstar on her back. Nightstar merely flipped onto her feet and whirled around to kick Ravager in the throat. Ravager coughed due to the momentary crushing of her windpipe.

"You lack the will to kill, don't you?" Ravager deduced. "That's why this fight won't end. I may be strong, but you're even stronger. You could have ended my life with that kick if you felt like it."

"I'm not a killer," Nightstar answered. "Not like you."

"We do what we have to in this world," Ravager stated as she swung her quarterstaff at Nightstar, who caught it with her energy whip and used it to swing herself at Ravager and kick her. The kick came with such force that both of them found themselves tumbling off the roof. Ravager pulled a pellet out of her belt and bounced it off the façade of a nearby building. The pellet exploded in a cloud of smoke and Ravager fell through it. "See you later, Nightstar!"

"Ravager!" Nightstar yelled as she flew through the smoke cloud after the assassin. When she passed through it, the older girl was nowhere to be found. "Damn her."

* * *

The Teen Titans returned to Titans Tower with tension so thick that The Ravager could have cut through it with her sword. Once inside, Nightstar was subjected to a brutal volley of recriminations.

"_What the hell were you thinking?_" Samara asked angrily, almost shouting the question.

"And that's assuming you even _were_ thinking," Inferno added.

"How could you, Mar'i?" Beast Girl asked. "We're your friends. Couldn't you have at least let us in on it?"

"No," Nightstar replied. "If you'd known Rubyhawk and I were the same person, you'd have held back. I needed Ravager to believe that I really was after you."

"And look how that turned out!" Bladefire yelled, shocking Nightstar because it was the first time in years she'd seen him lose his temper. "She was just stringing you along, taking amusement in the idea that you'd attack us of your own free will!"

"It was necessary," Nightstar stated. "If you knew who I was behind that helmet, you wouldn't have fought me with everything you had."

"Like it mattered," Mercury spat, having speed-healed the knife wound Ravager had given him. "You know us too well. You know how we fight, how we think."

"You truly are your father's daughter," Samara sneered.

Nightstar's eyes flashed a lurid violet and she slapped Samara hard enough to leave a long-lasting sting. "_Don't . . . ever . . . call me . . . that._"

Samara's eyes glowed white and she punched Nightstar with as much force as she could muster. While it wouldn't seriously harm someone of her constitution, it still stung.

Nightstar growled and lunged at Samara, only to be halted in mid-lunge by Raziel's hand around her wrist.

"Let go, Raziel," she growled.

"Not if you intend to harm Samara," Raziel answered calmly. "The intensity of your feelings has left your soul bare to me, so I can easily read your intentions and I know you still intend to harm her."

Meanwhile, Samara was being held back by Inferno, who was in human form. "Let me go," she snarled.

"Can't," Inferno replied. "She hurt you, I know. But she hurt us all, so I'm not going to let you make it all about you."

"You disappoint me, honestly," Raziel stated bluntly. "Ruthless, dishonorable, underhanded. You resorted to deception and trickery to gain an edge over Ravager and while that in itself is not so dishonorable, as deception and trickery are the best weapons of the ninja, you were willing to discard us to get to her. You regarded us as less than important and that I cannot so easily abide or forgive." He glared coldly at Nightstar. "Are you sorry? Does the thought of what you so deliberately did to us fill you with remorse and regret? Does it?"

He unceremoniously released her. Nightstar went to her room, where she stripped off the rest of her Rubyhawk costume, revealing her normal costume. She walked to the full-length mirror across from her bed and looked at her reflection, pausing at the still-healing slash Ravager had given her.

"It was necessary," Nightstar muttered. "Necessary."

_Was it?_ a nagging little voice in her mind whispered. _Or are you just telling yourself that to feel better about screwing over your friends?_

_Shut up,_ Nightstar growled. _I did what I had to._

_Was that your father thought when he created Red X?_ the voice asked.

_Shut up!_ Nightstar yelled. _I'm nothing like him! I'm not, I'm not, I'M NOT!_ She collapsed on her knees, murmuring softly to herself, "I'm not. I'm not. I'm not . . ."

* * *

End Notes: A rather grim note on which to end this chapter. The people that guessed that Rubyhawk was a form of Red X were correct. They just didn't think to guess _which_ Red X. You'll see the Titans deal with the repercussions of Nightstar's actions in the concluding chapter(s) of this arc and maybe one or two standalone stories. You'll also see the faces of the syndicate that has hired The Ravager to kill the Titans.

You're free to let me know what you thought of this story now.


	5. Ravaged: Root

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 1: "Ravaged"

Chapter 5: "Root"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Ravager, and Mercury do not belong to me; the first two belong solely to DC Comics and the last one is jointly owned by Marvel and DC. Everyone and everything else belongs to me, except for anyone you might recognize from the comics or show that I haven't mentioned for fear of spoiling this chapter.

Author's note: This might be the last chapter of this arc, assuming I don't have enough material for a sixth chapter. The ramifications of Nightstar's actions will be seen in this chapter and you'll see the syndicate that has hired Ravager revealed. You might even see a few familiar faces.

Now on with the story.

* * *

The Ravager stood in the shadowy lair of the syndicate that had hired her.

"Ravager," the young woman with the cultured voice spoke. "Why haven't you killed the Titans yet?"

"Relax," Ravager answered. "I'll kill them when I'm good and ready. No sooner."

"You knew that Rubyhawk and Nightstar were one and the same," the one whose "face" was enshrouded in lurid flames hissed. "Why didn't you take the opportunity to kill her?"

"Wait . . . you've been watching me?" Ravager asked in an offended tone.

"Yes," the cultured young woman replied. "We like to keep an eye on our investments and we've invested a lot in you."

"Not that it matters now," the one with the crackling voice added. "Thanks to you, we have an estimate of the Titans' abilities. We no longer need you."

"So I'm not going to get paid," Ravager concluded. "Furthermore, you six intend to kill me, don't you?"

"What a clever girl," a silky, arrogant feminine voice remarked.

Lights snapped on, not quite eliminating the shadows, but allowing Ravager to see those that had hired her.

The most notable person she saw, and the leader according to her stance, was a blonde young woman with a light coat of black fur covering her body. Her eyes were a catlike gold and a black panther's tail protruded from her backside. Oddly enough, a pink latex tube top and pants contrasted against the black. Black feline ears poked out from the top of her blonde head and her nails were claws.

The next person she noticed was a male figure clad in red lightning-adorned black motorcycle leathers with spikes on the wrists and shoulders and a chain slung around his shoulder. His "face" was actually a fanged skull lit by an unholy flame. That same unholy flame emanated from his hands, which were nothing but bone.

The third was a girl who had her pink hair styled in what looked like messy pom-poms. Her eyes were a matching color and her cream-skinned face had pink blush on her cheeks. She wore a black corset with purple designs over a dark purple shirt stained black at the open ends of the sleeves and tight dark purple pants stained black at the open ends of the legs. Black platform boots adorned her feet.

The fourth was a girl whose black hair was styled in a cute bob. She wore a black bustier over a black mesh shirt, black gloves, and black vinyl pants and boots. The most notable thing about her was her cold blue eyes.

The fifth was a tanned young man who wore a white lab coat over a black-and-red shirt and loose black pants with flame designs on the legs. The look in his eyes suggested a capacity for destruction that could rival most infernos.

The sixth was a man who appeared to have an affection for grunge, which was the only way The Ravager could account for his torn clothes and shaggy dirty blond hair.

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," the black cat-girl stated. "I am Panther. My five associates are Hex" – she gestured toward the pink-haired girl – "Speed Demon" – she gestured toward the fiery-skulled being in the lightning-adorned motorcycle leathers – "Gemini" – she gestured toward the mesh-and-vinyl-clad girl – "Dr. Blaze" – she gestured toward the lab-coated man – "and Sorrow" – she gestured toward the grungy young man. "We are Tartarus."

"Tartarus," Ravager echoed. She chuckled. "After the realm in which the Titans of Greek and Roman myth were imprisoned."

"Yes," Speed Demon hissed. "Only we will imprison these Teen Titans in the depths of hell."

"You intend to kill me," Ravager stated, drawing her quarterstaff from her belt and extending it to its full length. "Bring it."

Suddenly, a fiery blur attacked Ravager. She attempted to fight back, but even with her abilities, the blur – which turned out to be Speed Demon – was too fast for her.

"Surprised?" Speed Demon asked. "I'm no weak _human_ speedster, and I've had a thousand years to master my power." He vibrated his hand so quickly that it turned intangible and he pushed it into Ravager's staff, causing it to shatter once he pulled it away.

Ravager jumped back and threw her darts at the demonic speedster, only to see him blur almost out of existence due to the speed with which he moved. A wave of pink energy struck the masked assassin and knocked her against a wall. Fireballs flew at her and she dodged them as well as she could. Despite that, one of them grazed her exposed cheek, turning the skin there an angry red. Finally, Gemini extended her fingers, pinning Ravager to the wall by impaling her forearms.

The Ravager struggled fiercely against her bonds.

"Struggle all you like, Rose Wilson," Gemini hissed. "It won't do you any good."

"How do you know my name?" Ravager asked.

"Please," Gemini scoffed. "Like it was that hard to figure out. You dress just like your father."

"Good," Panther purred as she walked toward Ravager. "Now hold her while I tear her throat out."

"No way I'm letting you tear my throat out," Ravager snarled.

"Rosie, you're as helpless as a newborn," Panther sneered. "What makes you think you can stop me?"

"The fact that that bomb I slipped in here is going to go off now," Ravager replied.

A millisecond later, the room exploded in burning sound and fury, distracting Gemini long enough for Ravager to break free of her grip. Immediately, she felt the bloody holes in her arms begin to close. Sensing she'd be doomed if she remained, she made a break for it. As she ran, she thought, _I hate running from a fight, but I know when I'm outmatched. If I'm going to kick their asses, I'm going to need some serious help._

"I'll bring her sorry carcass back here!" Speed Demon roared.

"No," Panther contradicted. "Let her run. It's not as though she can stop us."

"So what do we do now?" Gemini asked as she licked the blood off her leather gloves.

"We plan," Panther replied. "Now that Ravager has shown us how the Titans function as a unit, we will be ready for them. And the schism between them that has resulted from Nightstar's deception will make it even easier for us to prevail."

* * *

There was trouble in the proverbial paradise of Titans Tower. Of course, there'd been trouble ever since Nightstar was revealed as Rubyhawk. The other Titans avoided her like she was diseased and command decisions had been left to Bladefire, as none of the other Titans trusted her to lead them into battle. Nightstar was never without a fellow Titan to partner with – or watch over her – when it came to patrol assignments.

The wound Ravager had given Nightstar had healed, but without Samara's healing powers to accelerate the process, it had left a scar. Nightstar made no attempt to hide it, seeing it as the evidence of her sin and she wanted to keep it, to punish herself.

One night, Nightstar was walking past the Titans' common room when she noticed that her six teammates were gathered together and discussing something intently. She hung by the door and listened to their discussion.

"Should we kick her out?" Bladefire asked.

"Why the hell not?" Samara asked icily. "She betrayed us. She did so without any compunction whatsoever. A leader capable of lying to her team with a straight face has no business being a leader."

"Sammy," Beast Girl spoke softly. "She's our friend. We can't just throw her out."

"First, don't ever call me Sammy," Samara growled. "Second, why not? She's no friend of ours if she's willing to cast us aside to pursue her objective."

"Didn't you read her soul, Samara?" Raziel asked. "Or are you so consumed with rage that you can't sense any other's emotions besides yours?"

"So what are you saying?" Inferno asked.

"I'm saying that I've been sensing intense feelings of guilt from Mar'i for the past several days," Raziel replied. "It's not as though she has no remorse whatsoever."

"I don't care how sorry she feels," Samara spat. "She made Ravager her obsession, her personal vendetta. A leader willing to endanger her team because of a vendetta doesn't deserve that position."

"So demote her!" Inferno shouted. "You don't have to kick her out!"

Unable to bear hearing anymore, Nightstar ran up to her room and packed a duffle bag full of clothes and equipment. She zipped up the bag and slung it over her shoulder, proceeding to fly out of the Tower so quickly that all most people could see was a blackish-purple trail. She flew east, but where exactly could she go? She wasn't going to Bludhaven, not when her father would surely censure her for her actions.

* * *

The distraught half-Tamaranean girl found herself in Gotham City, the home of the legendary Dark Knight. She perched on a rooftop and finally let her tears flow.

_They hate me,_ Nightstar thought as she wept bitterly. _They all hate me._

"Nightstar," a deep, hissing growl of a voice called.

Nightstar looked up and saw a man with most of his body covered by a dark, scalloped cape and his face completely concealed by a pointy-eared mask.

"Batman," she uttered, rising to her feet.

"Nightstar, what are you doing here?" Batman asked.

"They hate me," Nightstar replied. "The other Titans hate me . . . and I can't blame them. Not after what I did to them."

"Is that why you kept the scar?" Batman asked. "Why you didn't ask Samara to heal it for you?"

"She hates me the most," Nightstar replied. "And why wouldn't she? She doesn't give out her trust easy and I just went and stomped all over it.

"I'm aware of what you did," Batman stated. "Your father . . . he knows. Bladefire told him. He wanted to confront you, but I told him you'd be better off hearing it from me."

"Hearing what?" Nightstar asked, hostility creeping into her voice.

"The truth," Batman replied, "that you may very well never regain their trust. That it'll take you a long time to win their forgiveness even if they do let you stay on the team and lead them. Most importantly, I want you to answer this question: Do you think you deserve to be forgiven? Can you look at yourself and see something other than a betrayer? If you can answer that, you can go home. Until then, you're going to stay with me and I'll show you how we do things in Gotham."

The Dark Knight leaped off the rooftop and his cape spread out like wings, going rigid so that it could carry its wearer on the air currents. Nightstar flew after him, the two patrolling the city of Gotham from the dark skies.

Soon enough, the two spotted a mugging. "I'll handle it," Batman whispered. "You stay up here as lookout."

"Sure," Nightstar replied.

Batman dove from the sky and descended on the muggers like an avenging angel with great black wings. Fists protected by steel-knuckled black gloves impacted against faces while feet encased in steel-toed boots buried themselves in stomachs. The one mugger who hadn't yet been beaten into submission attempted to run, only to be ensnared by bolas.

"Holy crap," the would-be mugging victim uttered in shock. "You-you're Batman!"

"Yes," Batman confirmed.

"Man, if only I had a pen and paper!" the mystified man exclaimed. As he reached into his pocket, Batman took it as an opportunity to shoot his grapnel gun and swing away, releasing the line when he was high enough to glide on the air currents.

Batman and Nightstar continued patrolling the streets for criminals, both small and large. They finally found themselves in the rafters of a seedy underworld tavern, watching a man with thinning brown hair with particular interest.

"Who's he?" Nightstar whispered.

"That's Flask," Batman replied. "One of the Devil's Head's managers."

"I thought the Head was just messing around in Bludhaven," Nightstar whispered.

"He also has holdings in Gotham," Batman answered.

"Hey," a man with a buzz cut said, "what the hell is that?"

"That's the goddamn Batman!" another man yelled.

"The hell does he want?" the man with the buzz cut asked.

Batman answered that question by pulling his un-extended bo staff out and throwing it at Flask, striking him in the throat. The other patrons of the tavern pulled out their guns and began shooting at Batman, who along with Nightstar, jumped out of the rafters. The Dark Knight retrieved his bo staff and extended it to its full length, using it to knock a patron's legs out from under him. Beside him, Nightstar lashed out with her energy whip, slicing through a number of the patrons' guns and leaving them barehanded. They just charged at her, anyway, figuring they'd overwhelm her by sheer force of numbers. They subsequently discovered that they were wrong to think that when they found themselves tossed around like rag dolls.

Batman acrobatically kicked off a corner of the tavern and his foot smashed into the teeth of a patron, knocking a few out. He spun while still airborne and smacked another patron with his cape, landing gracefully on his feet and delivering a backhanded smack to a patron that had attempted a sneak attack. He used his staff to pole-vault into a kick that knocked a fourth patron over the counter.

The wiser patrons chose to flee through the backdoor. That was just fine with Batman, as he didn't want them. He wanted Flask . . . and he hoped he hadn't blended in with the fleeing patrons. Unfortunately, a scan of the tavern revealed that he had. Swearing under his breath, the Dark Knight made his way out the backdoor, ready to hunt down Flask if it took him the rest of the night.

He discovered he didn't have to search that long, as Flask was lying flat on the ground and had a red energy staff held at his throat. The person holding that staff was a teenage girl, not much older than Nightstar, dressed in a red armored tunic and skirt over a black suit made of modern chain mail. Her eyes were concealed by red goggle-glasses and a red R was emblazoned on the top of the left sleeve.

"Robin," Batman greeted.

"Hey, Bats," Robin greeted back slightly more energetically. "Just holding down this guy for you."

"Thanks," Batman answered.

"You're welcome," Robin spoke with a grin.

At that moment, Nightstar came out. "Hey," she greeted.

"Hi, Nightstar," Robin greeted. "What brings you to Gotham?"

"Just . . . taking some time away from the Titans," Nightstar replied.

"You get in a fight with them?" Robin surmised.

"Something like that," Nightstar answered guiltily. "I should go."

"Why?" Robin asked.

"I can't run from them forever," Nightstar replied. "What's the saying? Sometimes you gotta face the music. This is one of those times." She rose into the air and flew away in a streak of dark purple.

* * *

At Titans Tower, Raziel stood before Nightstar's door, simply gazing at it.

_Goddamn, you are such a lovelorn bastard,_ Memnoch taunted in his head.

_I'm surprised you even know what that word means, you mad dog,_ Uriel sneered.

_Will you two stop?_ a girl's voice asked plaintively. The psycho killer and the embodiment of cold reason turned in Raziel's mindscape to face the source of the voice, a persona that appeared to be a feminine version of Raziel. _It hurts. It hurts without her._

_Quit your friggin' whining, Gabrielle,_ Memnoch growled.

_Damn you, Memnoch, do you have no compassion?_ a persona dressed in a martial arts gi and hakama asked. _She's in pain. We all are._

_Well, Mr. Zen Warrior, what the hell do you propose we do about it?_ Memnoch asked. _Go off and beg her to come back?_

_Begging will not work,_ Uriel stated. _Mar'i_ _is too strong-minded to succumb to another's pleas if it is something she does not truly wish to do. She may not wish to return to us and why should she? After all, we discussed kicking her off the team, separating her from people she has known since childhood because of one bad act._

"Raziel? Raziel? Hey, snap out of it!" the psychic martial artist heard Mercury shouting. He pulled himself away from his mindscape and into the real world.

"What is it, Peter?" Raziel asked.

"You've been staring at that door for thirty minutes," Mercury replied. "I know you're in love with her, man, but that's kind of pathetic."

"I am not in love with Mar'i," Raziel contradicted. With a pointed gaze at Mercury, he added, "Just like you're not in love with Terri."

"Whatever," Mercury spoke. Just then, he heard the door chime. "I'll get it!" He sped to the door in a blue-and-white blur, finding Nightstar on the other side.

"Hi," Nightstar greeted quietly.

"Hey," Mercury greeted back. "Come in."

"So how did you vote?" Nightstar asked once she'd entered. "Am I out?"

"No," Raziel replied. "You're still in. And you're still our leader."

"But – after what I did, I was sure –" Nightstar started to say but Raziel cut her off.

"Bladefire excused himself from the final decision," he said. "He said he was too close to the situation on account of being your brother to vote with a clear head. I broke the tie in your favor."

"Why?" Nightstar asked.

"Because we're friends," Raziel answered firmly. "And friends deserve second chances."

"Now that's really touching," a familiar voice taunted. "I'm almost tempted to shed a tear."

"Ravager!" Nightstar yelled. "How did you get in here?"

The Ravager leaped out of a shadow and landed agilely on the ground. Mercury sounded the alarm, summoning all the Titans together.

"Ravager," Samara growled. "How did you get in here?"

"That's the same question Nightstar just asked me," Ravager replied with a smirk. "If you must know, I simply downloaded the blueprints for your Tower and slipped in through a weak spot in your security."

"How did you get those blueprints?" Inferno asked.

"Once I cut through all those firewalls and encryption, it was quite easy," Ravager replied.

"What do you want?" Beast Girl asked.

"Your help," Ravager replied.

"Any reason why we should give it?" Beast Girl asked.

"Because the people who hired me to kill you have decided that I am no longer needed," Ravager explained. "I was never meant to kill you, just to test you, just a method for them to gauge your abilities before taking you on themselves."

"So who are these people that hired you?" Bladefire asked.

"They call themselves Tartarus," Ravager replied. "If they made you take Greek and Roman myth as an elective, you might know that Tartarus was the realm in which the gods that you named yourselves after were imprisoned."

"Who's in Tartarus?" Nightstar asked.

"I've been doing research on them," Ravager answered as she walked to the Titans Tower mainframe and began accessing it. "Panther's their leader. Started out as the spoiled princess brat of a loser criminal named Killer Moth, who later became a demonic moth called Charaxes thanks to a deal he made with a demon. Panther spliced her DNA with that of a panther and she became a panther-woman, with all the abilities of that particular feline."

"Who are the others?" Raziel asked.

"Mercury, I'm sure you know this one well," Ravager spoke. "Speed Demon. Gale Force of Hell. Fastest demon around."

"Him," Mercury confirmed with a slight shudder.

"There's a pink-haired witch named Hex, formerly of the H.I.V.E. Academy and due to her looks, it's common knowledge that she's Jinx's daughter," Ravager continued. "Then you have Gemini, a.k.a. the resident twisted shifter. Claims to be the daughter of Madame Rouge, but nobody knows for certain. You've also got a pyrokinetic lunatic in a lab coat and a really creepy guy who's a little too attached to grunge for his own good."

"That would be Dr. Blaze, but who's the other guy?" Inferno asked.

"Panther called him Sorrow," Ravager replied.

"So how do we fight them?" Mercury asked.

"I'll tell you that in the morning," Ravager answered. "Right now, it's quite late and I'm sure you all could use some rest. You don't want to have to fight off sleep in class tomorrow, now do you?"

"Don't patronize us," Nightstar hissed. "You're not our mother."

"You have a serious mother fixation," Ravager commented. "You know that, don't you?"

Nightstar growled, calmed only by Bladefire's hand on her arm. "She does have a point," he conceded. "We won't be able to do anything without some rest."

"What about Ravager?" Samara asked. "We can't leave her unattended."

"I'll escort her to a guest room," Bladefire replied. "Then I'll lock down the room so that she can't sneak out and mess with the Tower."

"Sounds good to me," Nightstar stated.

So it was that Bladefire found himself escorting The Ravager to the guest room.

"All right, here's the room," he said. "Good night, Ravager." He turned to walk away, only to feel a gloved hand closing around his wrist. "Huh?" was all he had time to say before he found himself pinned against the wall with Ravager's lips pressed against his. To his shock, he found himself kissing her back. He managed to push her away a little, just enough to get his mouth free so he could ask, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You want me, you know you do," Ravager purred. "It's ok . . . I want you, too. Be mine, if only for this night."

"I can't," Bladefire uttered. "You're a criminal, a killer. How could I . . ." He paused. "Let me see your face. I need to look into your eyes. I want to see if you mean what you're saying."

"As you wish," Ravager whispered before pulling off her mask. Silver hair tumbled free of the mask, falling over her left eye but leaving her blue right eye exposed.

"Rose?" Bladefire uttered in hushed shock. "You're The Ravager."

"Not tonight," Rose whispered. "Tonight, I'm Rose." She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again as he pressed the code that would allow entrance into the guest room. The two tumbled into the guest room, falling onto the plain bed. Rose reached up and undid Bladefire's ponytail, letting his crimson hair fall over his shoulders.

* * *

The next morning, Bladefire woke up to discover that he was alone in the bed. His indigo eyes snapped open in fear that Ravager had sneaked out of the room while he was sleeping and had killed the other Titans.

"Relax, Blade," Ravager spoke as she walked into the room, dressed in nothing but a short bathrobe and wearing a towel wrapped around her head. With her hair concealed under the towel, Bladefire could see that she wore an eye-patch over her left eye.

"What happened to that eye?" Bladefire asked.

"A mission," Ravager replied. "That's what happened to that eye."

"Why do you do it?" Bladefire asked.

"Do what?" Ravager asked.

"Kill people for money," Bladefire clarified.

"The money, of course," Ravager replied.

"If you just wanted money, I'm sure there are other ways of using your talents to get it," Bladefire suggested.

"Yes, but this is most lucrative," Ravager stated. "I don't intend to do this forever. This is just a steppingstone to something greater, but I'm going to need a lot of funds, which is why I do what I do."

"And what _is_ this something greater?" Bladefire inquired, his eyes narrowing.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with right now," Ravager answered. She smirked, changing the subject. "You have a very sexy mouth, you know that?"

Bladefire blushed, remembering what he had done to the silver-haired young woman with that mouth. Finding his voice, he grinned. "So do you."

"Ah, thank you," Ravager responded.

Just then, the two heard Nightstar's voice over the intercom. "_Titans, Ravager, report to the common room in ten minutes. If you're not there by then, I'm coming for you and I won't care if you're naked!_"

"You'd better get up, Blade," Ravager admonished in a singsong voice. "You don't want Nightstar seeing you naked, do you?"

"She already saw me naked," Bladefire replied as he got out of bed and began walking in the direction of the shower.

"Yeah, but that was when you were little children," Ravager remarked.

Bladefire heard the snap of a wet towel and felt a slight sting on his backside. "Rose . . ."

Ravager just put on her best innocent face.

Resisting the urge to throw her down on the bed and stage a repeat of last night's events, Bladefire rushed to the bathroom and took a quick shower. Once it was over, he rushed to his room and dressed in his uniform. After that, he joined the other Titans and a costumed Ravager in the common room.

* * *

"So what's the plan, Ravager?" Nightstar asked.

"The plan is this: Nightstar, you and I will take on Panther," Ravager replied. "Speed Demon's a speedster, so Mercury handles him. Inferno, ever heard the phrase 'fight fire with fire'? Samara, your powers will be best suited for dealing with Hex, as you're both sorceresses. Beast Girl, Gemini's yours. Bladefire, Raziel, you two deal with Sorrow."

"Do you even know what Sorrow is capable of?" Raziel asked.

"Not really," Ravager admitted. "I didn't see him fight or use any metahuman or supernatural ability."

"So in other words, we're the only ones who'll be going in with no idea of what our opponent is capable of," Raziel concluded with a hint of bitterness.

"Wouldn't have assigned you two to him if I didn't trust your abilities," Ravager answered. "And don't you seven have to go to school?"

"Yeah, but we're not leaving you in our tower all by yourself," Beast Girl declared.

"Why, Beast Girl, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you thought I'd be lonely here," Ravager purred.

"No, we just don't want you sabotaging the Tower or learning our secrets," Beast Girl amended.

"We don't have to worry about school today," Nightstar replied. "I called us out, told them we had a mission to train for. Considering that we do defend this city, they understood."

"So what do we do all day?" Mercury asked.

"We train," Nightstar replied. "Then at sundown, Ravager takes us to Tartarus' hideout and we kick their asses."

"Sounds good to me," Inferno said.

* * *

That night, Ravager led the Teen Titans to Tartarus' hideout. Ravager rode Inferno's motorcycle, while Inferno joined Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, and Samara in the air. Raziel rode his own motorcycle beside Ravager and Mercury ran beside them.

They arrived at Tartarus' headquarters, which turned out to be hidden in the catacombs of the city.

"Ah, if it isn't the little Rose," Panther sneered.

"Don't call me little," Ravager snarled.

"And I see you brought the Teen Titans with you," Panther added. "Perfect. I get to kill them all, starting with the daughter of that bitch!"

"Are you still mad that my father married my mother instead of you?" Nightstar asked. "How pathetic, _Kitten._"

"Don't call me that!" Panther yelled. "I am _Panther!_" With that declaration, she lunged at Nightstar and slashed her with her claws, moving so quickly that even Nightstar was taken by surprise. Five bloody scratches marked her shoulder and chest.

"You'll pay for that," Raziel growled softly. He was about to take on Panther, but Ravager blocked him.

"No," she hissed. "Sorrow is yours to deal with. Nightstar and I will handle Catbitch." With that statement made, she drew her repaired katana and slashed at Panther, who jumped up and balanced herself on the flat of Ravager's blade. She performed an acrobatic motion somewhere between a flip and a cartwheel and kicked Ravager in the chest.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mercury and Speed Demon stared each other down.

"Ready to die, speed brat?" Speed Demon asked.

"I beat you before," Mercury answered.

"Yes, but only because Kid Flash lent you her speed," Speed Demon brought up. "Without her, all you can do is lose." He dashed at Mercury and punched him, sending him flying. As the platinum-haired speedster flew, the flame-skulled demon charged and continued punching him rapidly. Mercury finally caught his fist and whirled at super-speed, using the extra force to throw him into a wall.

The two moved and fought so quickly that they appeared to be colliding blurs to anyone observing. As they fought, Mercury felt his movements growing more and more sluggish.

"You, you're stealing my speed!" Mercury exclaimed.

"Yes," Speed Demon confirmed before pummeling the young speedster with small hyper-fast spheres of demonic energy.

"What the hell are these, speed bullets?" Mercury asked.

"Nice name," Speed Demon replied before charging up his fist with hyperkinetic energy and punching Mercury so hard that the he was propelled into a wall.

* * *

Samara and Hex were throwing bolts of mystical force at each other, Samara's colored black and Hex's colored pink. Neither one could actually land a hit on the other, although Samara's bad luck hitting Hex was due more to Hex's insane reflexes.

"How do you move like that in a corset?" Samara asked.

"Practice," Hex replied as she flipped out of the way of another bolt of black energy. "As for your fashion sense, I like the skirt of belts. Very Lulu-esque."

"You played Final Fantasy X?" Samara asked.

"Yeah," Hex replied. "Great game. Loved Lulu's fashion sense. Wished she would have ended up with Rikku instead of Wakka."

If Samara were a character in an animé, she would have sweat-dropped right then and there. However, she wasn't, so she settled for the telekinetic equivalent of a so-called "bitch slap."

* * *

Inferno and Dr. Blaze shot fireballs at each other and evaded each other's flame attacks.

"Will you stay still and die?" Dr. Blaze asked.

"No," Inferno replied as he spun on his hands with his legs in a split, performing a move he called "Spiral Inferno Kick." Dr. Blaze blocked the attack as well as he could, but the persistent battering of his forearm by Inferno's kicks was taking a toll on him.

Inferno jumped up and shot flame darts at Dr. Blaze, who generated a shield to block them. He proceeded to turn that shield into a giant fireball that he launched at Inferno, who sliced through it with a burning karate chop.

* * *

Gemini rapidly extended her fingers toward Beast Girl's throat, intending to puncture it. However, the blonde shape-shifter turned into a fly and avoided the strike, re-forming herself as an elephant and plummeting toward Gemini, who stretched out of the way. She proceeded to literally wrap herself around Beast Girl as the other girl shifted back to human form.

"Let go!" Beast Girl exclaimed.

"Why should I?" Gemini asked. "I rather like it like this. . . ." As she spoke, Beast Girl felt herself sinking into Gemini's body.

"What are you doing?" Beast Girl asked in fright.

"I want you inside me," Gemini purred as she began to absorb Beast Girl, a mad light entering her normally cold blue eyes. "I want you trapped in me forever!"

Beast Girl writhed and struggled fiercely, but Gemini continued pulling her into her mass. The rather disturbing thing about it all was Gemini's expression, which appeared to be that of a girl who was being carnally gratified. Finally, Gemini succeeded in absorbing Beast Girl, only to get an unpleasant surprise when Beast Girl ripped her way out of her, her claws glowing with golden light.

"How did you do that?" Gemini asked, surprised.

"A trick I learned from my mom's side of the family," Beast Girl replied. "Just like you learned how to be so twisted from _your_ mom!"

"Don't talk about my mother," Gemini hissed. "Your father is the reason she's dead!"

"Boo freaking hoo," Beast Girl spat as she tore a section of earth from the ground and rode it into Gemini's face.

* * *

Meanwhile, Bladefire and Raziel were throwing energy knives and psychic bullets made from marbles at Sorrow, who was simply contorting in ways thought to be unimaginable, not to mention ways that kept him out of the way of the two Titans' projectiles.

"How the hell is he doing that?" Bladefire asked.

"Contortionist," Raziel replied. "He'll be difficult."

Bladefire summoned his energy sword and Raziel sheathed his index and middle fingers in sharpened psychic energy. The two charged at Sorrow and slashed quickly at him. Sorrow twisted his way out of each and every attack.

"Will you stop dodging and fight?" Bladefire asked.

"No," Sorrow replied, his voice sending a dark chill down his opponents' spines. "It's fun feeling your rage, your frustration. It's like a drug . . . but you know my favorite emotion?"

"What?" Bladefire asked, despite his dread of the answer.

"Fear. Dread. Terror," Sorrow replied. "Whatever you want to call it, it pleases me like no other." He twisted again, this time striking Bladefire and Raziel.

"Where did that come from?" Bladefire asked.

"Like your silver-haired friend said, I'm a contortionist," Sorrow replied. "Some people are lucky enough to be triple-jointed. I, on the other hand, am _quadruple_-jointed, so I can do all kinds of things that normal people can't."

"You're a meta," Raziel deduced. "And your power, aside from empathy, is extreme flexibility."

"Correct," Sorrow confirmed as he contorted himself into a ball and ricocheted into an attack that knocked Bladefire and Raziel onto the ground.

* * *

Nightstar and Ravager continued fighting Panther, who was dodging their whip and sword strikes and lacerating them repeatedly. Ravager's wounds quickly sealed themselves, but Nightstar was still bloody from the scratches.

"It's not a good idea to expose so much skin," Panther sneered at Nightstar. "But you must take after your slut of a mother."

Nightstar's eyes glowed a shocking violet and they unleashed a wave of optic force that slammed Panther into a wall.

"Don't call my mother a slut!" she yelled, flying at Panther and viciously thrashing her. By the time she was done, the panther-woman was a mangled mess of black fur. The slow rise and fall of her chest was the only thing that proved she was still alive.

Ravager whistled. "I knew you had it in you," she remarked. She looked at the blood still oozing from Nightstar's wounds and licked her lips.

"What are you thinking, Ravager?" Nightstar asked.

"Nothing," Ravager replied innocently, holding her hands behind her back and smiling sweetly.

"You'd have pulled that look off a lot better if you weren't in that outfit," Nightstar commented. She looked at the fighting continuing all around her and Ravager. "I'll help Bladefire and Raziel. You help Inferno."

The two young women split off, Nightstar landing on Sorrow with a flying kick and Ravager throwing a flame-retardant capsule at Dr. Blaze. The capsule exploded from the heat Dr. Blaze was giving off and entrapped him in a sticky substance that prevented him from using his fire powers.

"Ah, the leader," Sorrow purred. "So much rage I feel coming from you, and at the same time, so much . . . sorrow."

"What do you care?" Nightstar asked as she lashed at Sorrow with her energy whip.

"I care because it feeds me," Sorrow replied. "The negative emotions of humanity are like a drug to me."

"I'm not human," Nightstar snarled.

"Not entirely," Sorrow acknowledged, "but you were raised among humans and their emotions are the same as yours. I wonder, where did all this anger and pain come from? Was it because your mother abandoned you and your brother for the sake of her people? Was it because your father beat you two half to death to teach you how to fight so you wouldn't end up dead like her? Was it because he married another woman?"

"Shut up!" Nightstar yelled as she blasted Sorrow with her optic force beam. Sorrow just got up with a twisted grin on his face.

"So beautiful . . ." he uttered with an awestruck expression. "Never before have I felt such pain, such rage. It's divine!"

"I said shut up!" Nightstar yelled, blasting him again,

"Stop it, Nightstar!" Raziel shouted. "You're just feeding him!"

"The boy is correct," Sorrow confirmed. "The more you feel, the more you rage, the stronger I become."

"Fortunately, _I_ do not feel," Uriel stated coldly, having taken over Raziel's body. "So you will not be able to feed off me."

Sorrow and Uriel locked eyes . . . and Sorrow passed out.

"What happened?" Bladefire asked.

"He could not feed off me because I am not affected by emotion," Uriel replied. "He felt absolutely nothing from me . . . and it terrified him so much that he passed out."

* * *

Gemini extended both arms, her nails impaling the wall on either side of Beast Girl. She used her arms to slingshot herself into a flying kick that knocked the younger shape-shifter into the wall. The mesh-and-latex clad shifter removed her nails from the wall and flipped into a fighting stance.

"Come on, little girl, is that all you have?" she asked.

"You haven't seen what I have," Beast Girl snarled in response and lunged at Gemini as a lioness, slashing the older girl with her claws. The vile shape-changer merely morphed her wounds out of existence before repeatedly punching Beast Girl with fists on rapidly stretching arms. Beast Girl reverted to human form and attempted to block Gemini's fists, but the force the other shape-changer gained from the momentum of her rapidly extending fists nearly broke her arms.

Gemini's hands enlarged and her fingers intertwined into a cage-like lattice that she attempted to use to trap Beast Girl, but the blonde simply transformed into a flea and slipped out of the lattice, coming at her as a wolf. Gemini launched her foot into a stretching kick, pinning Beast Girl to the wall by her throat. Beast Girl reverted to human form again and attempted to squirm out of Gemini's grasp. Unfortunately, Gemini's foot on her throat was cutting off her air supply.

"I wonder how your father will feel when I present your corpse to him," the black-haired shape-shifter sneered, smiling in pleasure from watching the green-skinned changeling's attempts to hold on to her life.

Beast Girl's response was to bring up her glowing hands and shoot a blast of earth energy at Gemini, blowing a hole in her chest. Unfortunately, that didn't do so much damage, as Gemini merely sealed the hole.

"I'm going to enjoy the look on your father's face when he sees your corpse!" Gemini yelled. As she ranted about all the ways she would torture Gar Logan before finally sending him to join his daughter, Beast Girl felt the other shape-changer's foot loosen on her throat. Seizing the opportunity, she shifted into a fly and flew into the air, re-forming into anrhinoceros and dropping on Gemini, literally flattening the other girl.

Beast Girl assumed human form once again and got off Gemini, who had been knocked unconscious by the impact of Beast Girl's rhino body.

"Not so tough after all," she muttered.

* * *

Mercury and Speed Demon continued to battle each other. Finally, Mercury stopped.

"I'm tired of fighting you," he said. "All right, I acknowledge that I'm utterly inferior to you and that you should suck the speed from me right now. Not like I ever put it to good use."

"I'm glad you finally accept your inferiority," Speed Demon growled in triumph.

The two speedsters ran toward each other and once they passed each other, Mercury began lending Speed Demon his kinetic energy as the demonic speedster merrily drank the energy the young human gave him. Unfortunately, Speed Demon sensed that something was terribly wrong with the whole exchange. Namely . . .

"Stop!" Speed Demon exclaimed. "This is too much!"

"Why?" Mercury asked. "I thought you wanted to drain the speed from every human speedster!"

"You little brat!" Speed Demon cried out in agony. "You tricked me!"

"Yeah, I did," Mercury confirmed smugly. "You wanna give back my speed or do you feel like being ripped to atoms?"

Speed Demon ran around frantically, trying to burn off the excessive kinetic energy. As he did, Mercury drained it from him and back into himself. Sensing that he would be completely drained of speed if this continued, Speed Demon fled.

* * *

Meanwhile, Samara and Hex continued to battle, bolts of altered probability and tendrils of living darkness clashing.

"So why do you wear that hood?" Hex asked. "Do you think it's cool to conceal your face or are you so ugly that you can't bear to let your face be seen by others?"

"You want to see my face?" Samara asked dangerously. She chuckled. "Fine." She lowered her hood . . .

. . . revealing four burning red eyes.

"What are you?" Hex cried out in horror as black tentacles came at her. She managed to dodge a few of them, but they kept coming at her and two caught her by her legs. Two more caught her by her arms and the four tentacles began pulling her into the core of darkness barely concealed by Samara's cloak.

"Someone you don't want to meet in a dark alley," Samara replied with a cruel smirk as she inhaled a black mist emanating from Hex. Once she finished, she released Hex, who stared at Samara vacantly before passing out.

* * *

The Titans regrouped. "What exactly happened to Hex?" Nightstar asked.

"She no longer had the will to fight me," Samara replied simply.

"Where's Ravager?" Bladefire inquired.

"I don't sense her anywhere near us," Samara answered.

"She must have slipped out while we were distracted," Inferno deduced.

"You think she'll come after us again?" Mercury wondered.

"Not unless someone else hires her to take us out," Raziel replied. "Besides, to her, we're too fun to kill."

"That's kinda disturbing," Beast Girl remarked. She smiled widely. "Now who's up for a marathon of slasher flicks?"

"Slasher flicks aren't real horror," Samara drawled in response.

"Yes, they are, you snob!" Beast Girl retorted.

"No, they aren't," Samara sneered back.

Mercury sped in between the two girls and wrapped an arm around each of them. "Ladies, I'm sure we can come to a peaceable compromise. Although that can wait until we're done dragging Tartarus to The Cage."

"Uh-huh," Nightstar agreed. "Now let's take care of that, and then we can debate the merit of slasher movies."

* * *

End Notes: That's it for the first arc of Teen Titans: Future Storm. However, the series isn't over yet. There are a couple of one-shot stories I plan to do, the first one about Nightstar going to Star City and hanging out with her best friend Lian Harper, a.k.a. Red Hood. After the other one, which centers around Beast Girl, you'll see the second arc, which focuses more on the mysterious psychic martial artist Raziel.

Killer Moth becoming Charaxes, which I had Ravager mention in her description of Panther, was something that actually happened in the Batman comics. Yes, Killer Moth was actually a Batman villain and as much of a loser there as he is portrayed in the TT animated series.

Panther is Kitten, in case you're confused.

The Robin depicted in this chapter is Carrie Kelly from the Frank Miller-penned DC Elseworlds miniseries The Dark Knight Returns. God bless that man.

Speed Demon is also a character I've borrowed from Amalgam Comics and altered for use in this story. Whereas Speed Demon in Amalgam Comics was kind of a hero, the Speed Demon depicted in this story is a villain.

Back in 1996, Marvel and DC published a four-part crossover miniseries in which the Marvel and DC Universes were targeted for destruction and only one could be saved, which caused the Marvel and DC heroes to battle it out for their respective universes. In the end, the Marvel Universe won, as Spider-Man (Ben Reilly, not Peter Parker, long story there) owned Superboy and that was the deciding fight. However, the guardians of both universes chose to merge them into one universe to prevent them from being destroyed. The adventures of the amalgamated heroes were depicted in twelve comics published under the Amalgam Comics banner.

Mercury was the merger of Impulse (later known as Kid Flash) and Quicksilver (Marvel's resident speedster). Stylistically, he was basically Impulse with Quicksilver's colors (silver and blue).

Speed Demon was the merger of the Flash, Ghost Rider, and Etrigan.

Gemini was Madame Rouge's daughter (or rumored to be) in the actual Titans comics and had much of the same powers as her. She made her appearance in a Beast Boy limited series in which our lovable green changeling was framed for murder by her. Since this story is all about the next generation of heroes and villains, I thought it made sense to use her here.

Now you know what Ravager looks like under her mask, you know her real name, and you know she's Slade's daughter. Will she appear again? Yes, she will. Will the other Titans find out that she and Bladefire slept together? Maybe, maybe not.

You're free to let me know what you thought of this arc. See you next time.


	6. Side Story 1: Red Night

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 1: "Red Night"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, either; the former belongs to DC and the latter belongs to DC and Marvel Comics. In addition, Red Hood and Black Canary III do not belong to me, as they are also owned by DC Comics.

Author's note: In case anyone was wondering if the Titans East had had children as well, you will find out in this side story. Note that this is a one-shot set in the universe of Teen Titans: Future Storm but is not part of the first arc of this story. Do not ask me for a continuation, as this is a _one-shot._ Get it? _One_ . . . shot. Good.

* * *

Dressed in a purple halter top and black cutoff jeans, Nightstar unzipped her bag and threw several changes of clothes in it, followed by several nightgowns. Toiletries found their way into the bag as well. Shoes of various types fell in a second bag.

"So what are you packing your bags for?" Mercury asked, leaning on the doorframe of her room.

"I'm going to see Lian," Nightstar replied.

"Hope you're not gonna come back in a new costume and try to slag us again," Mercury remarked offhandedly, only to catch a dirty look from Nightstar. "Sorry. Low blow."

Nightstar sighed. "I don't blame you. If I were you, I'd still be suspicious of me, too."

"We already forgave you," Mercury said, his tone growing serious. "Maybe when you come back from seeing Lian, you'll forgive you, too."

Nightstar smiled. "Thanks, Pete."

"You're welcome," Mercury replied. "Now go have fun with Lian. And get me her number this time."

"I thought you liked Terri," Nightstar said.

"I do, but a guy has to be able to expand his horizons," Mercury commented with a cocky grin.

"I'll tell her you said that," Nightstar threatened lightly.

Mercury lost his cockiness right then and there. "Do I have to do anything to make sure you don't tell her I said that?"

"Yes," Nightstar answered. "Tell her how you feel."

Mercury hung his head and sighed. "Easier said than done."

"Well, if you'd try approaching her honestly instead of flirting and making eyes at her, you'd have better luck," Nightstar stated.

Mercury simply "blinked" out of existence, although Nightstar knew full well that he'd simply dashed away too quickly for her eyes to detect him. The half-Tamaranean girl slowly shook her head and continued packing.

Once she'd finished, she slung her bags over her shoulders and walked out of her room, entering the lock code so that no one would enter without her permission.

"I'll see you guys on Sunday night," Nightstar said to the Titans.

"Have a good time," Raziel said. After that, he shut his eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Shut up, Memnoch."

* * *

Nightstar exited the Tower and took off into the skies, flying at a speed comparable to that of a race car. Within the space of thirty to forty-five minutes, she found herself in Star City. She continued to fly over the city until she spotted a familiar three-story house in the suburbs. Not wanting to make a scene, she quietly landed between houses and walked to the front door like a normal person. Once there, she rang the doorbell.

Within a few short moments, a red-haired, green-eyed man with a "soul patch" answered the door. "Hi, Mar'i. It's been a while."

"Hi, Uncle Roy," Mar'i greeted back.

Roy Harper, formerly known as Speedy and Arsenal, grinned at her. "Come on in."

Mar'i took his invitation and entered Roy's abode not for the first time. Roy turned to the stairway and shouted, "Lian! Mar'i's here!"

"Coming, Dad!" Lian shouted from upstairs. Soon enough, a girl with curly red-orange hair, crystalline green eyes, and vaguely Asian features raced down the stairs. She wore a tight black T-shirt with the words "I love Daddy" written in pink on the front and tight red spandex pants. She grinned when she saw Mar'i. "Hey there."

"Hi, Lian," Mar'i greeted back.

The two girls air-kissed each other on the cheek.

"I suppose I'll leave you two girls alone," Roy said. "Besides, I got a call and the Justice League and the Bureau of Metahuman Affairs is having another dispute. Bats is trying to calm everyone down, but I think fists are gonna start flying unless I step in and cool things off. See you around." He walked to the back door and opened it. Before he left, he turned around and looked at the two girls. "Don't get yourselves in trouble, all right?"

"Sure, Dad," Lian answered.

"We'll be good, Uncle Roy," Mar'i added with a cloying grin on her face.

Roy chuckled. "Uh-huh." He pulled the door shut and walked to his car, opening it with the small remote attached to his key and slipping into the driver's seat.

Once he was gone, Lian turned to Mar'i with a wicked grin. "Ready to have some fun?"

"Whenever you are," Mar'i replied with an equally wicked grin.

"Good," Lian said. "I've got the movies and the snacks."

Soon enough, Mar'i and Lian were sharing a bowl of potato chips while watching a Batman movie.

"It's amazing just how much filmmakers can screw up when they know virtually jack about their subject," Lian remarked.

"For X'Hal's sake!" Mar'i exclaimed. "Batman is not a blood-drinking demon!"

"Try to be understanding, Mar'i," Lian suggested. "These people know nothing about Batman aside from third-hand testimony from freaked-out criminals. If you think about it, it's really a movie based on a myth and it's kinda fun."

Mar'i grunted and ate another handful of chips.

"I wonder what would happen if they made a movie about us," Lian remarked.

"That would be harder for them to screw up," Mar'i replied. "After all, it's not like our identities are secret."

"You think they'll go with the rumor that Nightwing is really your father instead of Richard Grayson?" Lian asked.

"Hollywood is addicted to scandal," Mar'i groused. "They'll run with it all they like, even if it isn't true."

Years ago, Richard Grayson had realized that he couldn't marry Starfire under the guise of Nightwing, since Nightwing did not exist on paper. As a result, he'd romanced her in his civilian identity and staged a battle with his costumed alter ego – as portrayed by the shape-shifter Mirage – to convince the world that Richard and Nightwing were two different people. He'd had to do it, because compromising his identity would ultimately mean compromising that of the original Batman and every other vigilante connected to him.

"Ouch," Lian remarked.

"What?" Mar'i asked, turning to the screen. "Oh, crap. He ripped that guy up like wet tissue paper."

"That is _so_ not Batman," Lian uttered. "He has more respect for life than that and even if he were a demon, he's supposed to be a demon trying to redeem himself! Demons looking for redemption don't just callously murder people, even if they're criminals!"

Mar'i chugged down a full can of soda and laid it down on the coffee table.

"So how have you been?" she asked.

"I've been good," Lian replied. "My dad is still pulling his hair out over me going out as a costumed crime-fighter, but why teach me all that stuff if he didn't want me to be one?"

"Maybe because he's scared you'll get killed?" Mar'i surmised. "I mean, your outfit has an arrowhead cut out of the chest so everyone can see your cleavage." She chuckled. "You're like the Power Woman of the archer set."

Lian laughed out loud at that. "Score one for you, funny girl. At least my outfit covers most of my body."

"Hey, Tamaraneans are sun drinkers," Mar'i responded. "We need our bodies exposed so we can properly absorb solar radiation."

"Well, those little booty shorts do wonders for your ass," Lian remarked with a wicked grin.

Mar'i blushed. She was used to Lian's flirtatious attitude, as she'd known the redhead for years, but her aggressiveness in that particular area was still a bit jarring. Despite that, she recovered quickly enough to retort, "And speaking of asses, yours looks great in those spandex pants."

Lian's grin widened. "Thanks."

The two girls turned to the TV and noticed that the movie was over. "Any other movies you've got?" Mar'i asked.

Lian walked over to the DVD player and ejected the Batman DVD, replacing it with a DVD of a martial arts animé movie called _Dead End Game._

"About one hour and forty-five minutes," the archer said as she plopped down next to the half-Tamaranean. "We'll be occupied for quite a while."

"So what's the plot of this movie again?" Mar'i inquired.

"It kinda borders on being a hentai but it barely manages to escape that label," Lian answered. "The plot behind it is that an evil martial artist kidnaps the daughter of his rival and stages a tournament, promising the winner his rival's daughter as a slave. Everything else falls into place after that."

"Ok," Mar'i uttered skeptically.

Approximately an hour into the movie, the tournament had boiled down to eight combatants: Tetsudou, the hero of the movie; Sora, a girlish-looking ninja; Mei, an Interpol agent and specialist in tae kwon do; Zeke, an American capoeira expert; Kana, a blind kunoichi whose other senses functioned with superhuman senses; Yukito, a specialist in jujutsu and karate; Yusaku, a martial artist with photographic reflexes; and Tsuchiryu, the main villain of the movie.

"Looks like we're gonna get some good fights now," Lian remarked.

"I kinda like Sora," Mar'i commented.

"Of course you do," Lian said. "He reminds you a lot of Raziel."

"Raziel's not that girlish-looking," Mar'i rejoined.

"Uh-huh," Lian sarcastically agreed. "I envy you."

"Why?" Mar'i asked.

"Unlike me, you don't have to worry about all these snacks going to your hips or your thighs," Lian answered.

"Lian, you exercise so much I'd be surprised if you gained any weight from these snacks," Mar'i remarked.

"I do have to maintain this sexy figure of mine," Lian remarked.

"So how about relationships?" Mar'i inquired.

"Nothing serious, just a few flings," Lian answered. "It's a lot harder to find someone I can seriously consider a relationship with, especially since so many of the boys in my school are just immature jerks who only care about scoring and nothing about commitment."

"Have you been careful?" Mar'i asked.

"Of course," Lian replied. "No boy goes near me without a condom. I've been taking the pill just in case the condom breaks, and I've been careful to pick guys who are decent enough not to brag to their buddies about scoring with me."

"Is that a difficult search?" Mar'i questioned.

"Damn straight," Lian responded. "And why are we even discussing my sex life when we could discuss yours?"

"There's nothing to discuss, Lian," Mar'i stated.

"Because you don't let yourself live a little!" Lian declared. "I mean, it's not like the city's going to fall apart if you take some time to have fun and find yourself a guy. What about Raziel? I'm sure he's very hot for you, no matter how cool and reserved he acts."

"There's too much about him I don't know," Mar'i said.

"So?" Lian asked. "He's a man of mystery. Most of us girls dig that."

"I'm not most girls, Lian," Mar'i countered.

"Doesn't mean you can't have a relationship," Lian argued.

"We've done this before, Lian," Mar'i groaned. "I can't have a relationship."

"And why not?" Lian asked. "Does it cut into your periods of angst over your mother's death and your dad marrying another woman? It's not like Barbara's such a bad woman, Mar'i. Your dad could have done worse. _Way_ worse. Remember Tarantula?"

Mar'i remembered Tarantula. She had never met the woman, but she'd overheard one of the later incarnations of her father's Titans speak of her. From what she'd gleaned from her eavesdropping, Tarantula was an amoral, psychotic vigilante with an obsession with the original Nightwing, who had tried in vain to save her from herself. When it became clear to him that she didn't wish to be saved, he'd remorsefully cut off all ties to her, much to her anger. She'd attacked the original Nightwing, a move that had resulted in her sitting in Blackgate Penitentiary.

"I still don't like it," she finally spoke.

"That's your own choice," Lian admitted. "Granted, I barely remember my mom; she's probably sitting in a maximum-security prison cell right now." She sighed. "What the hell. Let's watch the movie while it's still on."

After the movie ended – the hero won, of course – the two girls began playing a variation of Truth or Dare. The method of play required that one girl ask the other a question. If the other girl refused to answer, she had to do whatever the girl asking the question wanted her to do, no matter how embarrassing or humiliating.

"I'll go first," Lian declared. "Mar'i, do you ever touch yourself at night and think of Raziel?"

Mar'i blushed. "Yes." She glared at Lian. "How many boys – or girls – have you ever slept with?"

"Four boys and two girls," Lian replied. "Why do you hate Barbara so much?"

"I don't feel like answering that," Mar'i stated.

"Fine," Lian conceded. "Call up Raziel and tell him you want to do him."

Mar'i cursed in Tamaranean and flipped open her communicator, tapping into Raziel's frequency.

"_Yes?_" Raziel greeted warily.

"I want . . . to do you," Mar'i greeted haltingly, abruptly closing the communicator.

"Aw, come on!" Lian whined. "Call him back and say it like you mean it!"

"I ought to strangle you for that," Mar'i growled. "Either that, or take you over my knee and spank you."

"You wouldn't," Lian taunted. "I am your best friend, after all." She grinned wickedly. "But the spanking sounds like fun."

"What's it like being with a girl?" Mar'i asked.

"I like both girls and guys, but I'd say it's slightly better with a girl," Lian replied. "More . . . sensual, instead of just being physical." She grinned. "Any girls you're attracted to?"

"No," Mar'i responded. "What was your first time like?"

"Not that satisfying," Lian admitted. "It felt nice, but that's about it. I got nothing more than that out of it." She looked at Mar'i. "Wanna go bust up some bad guys?"

"Hell, yes," Mar'i replied.

Mar'i and Lian changed into their costumes, sneaking looks at each other's bodies when each thought the other wasn't looking. Mar'i's body was femininely muscular, in the sense that her muscles didn't bulge like a bodybuilder's or a wrestler's. It was obvious she had them, but they were akin to those of a very agile athlete or fighter, not to mention that they didn't draw attention away from her curves. Lian's body was more slender, but kept from the point of anorexia by her athletic training and occasional pigging out on chocolate chip cookies. While her curves were not quite as generous as Mar'i's, no one looking at her would deny that she had them.

Lian pulled out her quiver and filled it with a generous amount of arrows before slinging it onto her back. She picked up her collapsible bow and crossbow and slid them into holding slots hidden on her costume. She took up her red cloak and placed it on her shoulders, raising her hood.

"Why do you call yourself Red Hood, Lian?" Nightstar asked.

"If you're thinking that I named myself after the Joker's initial alias, you'd be rather wrong on that," Red Hood replied. "It's actually after Little Red Riding Hood." She pointed up at the hood she wore. "See?"

* * *

Nightstar and Red Hood exited the house and got on a sleek scarlet motorcycle, Red Hood taking the handlebars and Nightstar sitting behind her.

"Let's ride," Red Hood said, revving up her motorcycle. She drove into the night, Nightstar holding on tightly to her. "Hey, you're breaking my ribs."

"Sorry," Nightstar shouted over the roar of the motorcycle engine and loosened her grip on Red Hood.

"Hey, there's that chop shop I've been staking out for a week!" Red Hood exclaimed. "Wanna take it down?"

"I don't see why not," Nightstar answered.

Red Hood drove right at the chop shop, building up speed and momentum until she burst through a dirty, fogged-up window.

"What the frig?" one of the carjackers exclaimed.

"Shoot them!" another carjacker yelled, pulling out his gun and shooting. The others followed that particular carjacker's lead and began firing at Nightstar and Red Hood, who leaped off the motorcycle in opposite directions.

Red Hood pulled out a crossbow and opened it, revealing an energy string. She fired a bolt right into the barrel of a carjacker's gun, jamming it. She ran at him and delivered a whirling kick to his gut that knocked the air out of his lungs.

Nightstar lashed with her energy whip, knocking the guns out of the hands of three carjackers. She flew at one carjacker and her flight propelled him into a wall with such force that it knocked him unconscious. The other two charged at her, but she spun with her leg out, striking one in his rib cage and another in his gut. Both crumpled into insensate heaps.

Red Hood and Nightstar performed cartwheel after cartwheel, moving out of the way of the bullets of the remaining carjackers. The two jumped into the air and came down with brutal kicks to the heads of two carjackers. They back-flipped into the air and Red Hood pulled out her collapsible bow, folding it out into its full size and revealing an energy string. She nocked an arrow and shot it into the midst of the two remaining carjackers. When the arrow exploded, it released tear gas, causing the carjackers to choke, gasp, and cry. Putting on a rebreather and giving another one to Nightstar, Red Hood rushed into the gas cloud and knocked out one carjacker, leaving the other to Nightstar, who took care of him in short order.

"Oracle," Red Hood spoke. "You mind sending an anonymous call to the police so that they can pick up these carjackers?"

"_Will do,_" the digitized, genderless false voice of the Oracle responded.

By the time the police arrived to take the carjackers into custody, the teen crime-fighters were already riding to the next crime.

"So who else are we going after?" Nightstar queried.

"I know a gaggle of dirtbags that's been asking for it for quite a while," Red Hood responded.

"Lead the way," Nightstar said.

* * *

In an abandoned warehouse, the six wealthiest drug pushers in Star City sat at a table.

"What are we doing here?" one of the pushers asked.

"I don't know," another pusher replied.

"All I got was some weird voice on my cell telling me to come here," a third pusher added.

"We all got that voice on our cells," a fourth pusher interjected.

The last two pushers didn't say anything at all at first. After several minutes though, one of them got the courage to speak.

"So who was that voice?" he asked.

"Actually, that was a friend of ours," a feminine voice replied from above them. "She called you here on our behalf."

The six pushers looked up at the catwalk and saw two teenage girls standing on it. One was dressed in a skintight black leather suit with an arrowhead cut out of the chest, red bracers, red knee-high boots, and a red cloak with the hood up. The other wore a tiny black top emblazoned with a purple wing emblem, tiny black shorts, thigh-high black boots, and purple wrist-guards.

The girl in black and red was well known to the criminal element in Star City and most people, even the criminals, only had to turn on the TV news to see the girl in black and purple.

Red Hood and Nightstar.

"Frag those bitches!" one of the pushers yelled, pulling out a semi-automatic and firing it at the two vigilantes, who jumped off the catwalk. The other five pushers followed his lead and began firing their weapons as well.

Red Hood and Nightstar dodged the hail of bullets, staying airborne and constantly moving so that the pushers couldn't get a clear shot at them. However, it was easier for Nightstar to stay airborne because she could fly. She flew a serpentine path through the bullets and delivered a haymaker to the jaw of one of the pushers, knocking him unconscious. Red Hood fired three arrows at the pushers, jamming their weapons. Just as she and Nightstar were about to take care of the remaining two, a sudden piercing cry rang out through the warehouse, disorienting both the vigilantes and the drug pushers.

Once it was over, a still-conscious Nightstar and Red Hood heard a female voice say, "Sorry! Should have made sure you two were out of the way first."

"Damn right you should have," Red Hood grumbled. "And what are you doing here, Black Canary? We were doing just fine."

"Yeah, but you would have had more thugs to fight if I hadn't shown up," the third young woman to bear the name Black Canary countered.

Nightstar and Red Hood turned to face their rescuer, who was dressed in the traditional leather and fishnets of the Black Canary. However, this Black Canary was far from traditional, having had her limbs, spine, and part of her brain replaced by cybernetics in the wake of a horrible accident. This small fact was not very obvious due to the fact that her cybernetic prosthetics were sheathed in artificial flesh to give her the appearance of being fully human.

"What do you mean?" Nightstar asked.

"What I mean is that there were more thugs hidden near the exits and entrances," Black Canary explained. "They'd have swarmed you if I hadn't taken them out for you."

"Well, thanks," Red Hood said.

"So, mind if I interest you two in some fun?" Black Canary asked.

"Sure," Red Hood replied. "We've been patrolling for half the night. We could use the break. How about it, Starry? You wanna have some fun?"

"Sure," Nightstar answered.

* * *

That night, the three girls – all in civilian wear – found themselves in _Tabula_ _Rasa,_ a nightclub frequented by young people looking for a little fun after sundown. A central glow-panel on the ceiling provided muted red light and mirrors set up in the corners of the club made it look more spacious than it actually was. Techno, trip-hop, and trance – all spiced with a little industrial – pulsed throughout the club.

"Hey, it's Olivia!" one of the patrons exclaimed.

Instantly, the Black Canary was surrounded by adoring fans.

"Olivia, I bought your latest album with the Steel Angels and I love every song!" a wide-eyed girl exclaimed. She pulled out the CD in question and held it out to the green-eyed blonde. "Could you please sign?"

Olivia Queen pulled out a Sharpie marker and signed her name on the CD.

"Thank you!" the girl squealed and departed into the crowd.

In addition to being a superhero, Olivia Queen was a musical sensation, performing with her friends and band-mates Avia Free and Mallory Duncan as the Steel Angels. Their particular style of music was a combination of trip-hop and rock, packaged in a way that made it accessible to many without "selling out." Although most people didn't know this, the Steel Angels as musicians was merely a cover for the Steel Angels as a covert crime-fighting team. While most people knew that Olivia and Avia were superheroes, they didn't know the truth of the Steel Angels.

After signing a few more autographs, Olivia faded into the crowd and began moving to the music along with Lian and Mar'i. The three girls got a number of eager would-be dance partners and Olivia and Lian danced with some of them while Mar'i turned them all down.

"Come on, Mar'i," Olivia encouraged in a singsong voice. "Just let go and have fun for once."

"That's what I keep telling her, Liv," Lian said.

"I can have fun just fine with you two," Mar'i countered. "I don't need a guy to have fun."

"Oh, is that an invitation, Mar'i?" Lian asked a coyness that was proven false when she wrapped her arms around the half-Tamaranean girl and began dancing with her.

"You two make quite a pretty picture," Olivia remarked, continuing to dance next to them.

* * *

Later on, the three girls headed home. "So what did you mean when you said Lian and I made 'quite a pretty picture'?" Mar'i questioned.

"You could be a very cute couple, in an erotic lesbian Butch and Sundance kinda way," Olivia answered.

Mar'i blushed at that, while Lian merely smirked. "See you later, Olivia," Lian said.

"See you later," Olivia responded, getting on her black motorcycle, putting her helmet on, and driving away.

Lian got on her own motorcycle and put on her helmet, passing a spare to Mar'i, who gratefully placed it on her head. Mar'i sat behind Lian and held on to the slightly older girl as she revved up the motorcycle and drove back to her house.

* * *

"You had a good time tonight, right, Mar'i?" Lian asked some hours later, wearing nothing but a black camisole and blue satin panties and lounging on the sofa.

"Yeah," Mar'i admitted, wearing a black nightie. She went to sit on the sofa and Lian sat up to make room for her, proceeding to rest her head on Mar'i's lap once the slightly younger girl had sat down.

"Good night, Mar'i," Lian whispered. "I hope you have sweet dreams."

"Thanks," Mar'i whispered. "Sweet dreams."

* * *

When Roy returned from his job with the CBI, he found Mar'i and Lian in the same position they'd been in when they'd fallen asleep. He didn't rouse them, just smiled softly at the scene in front of him and went upstairs to his room.

* * *

End Notes: That's it for this side story.

First off, I will say that Mar'i and Lian are not a couple. They are two best friends who happen to be very comfortable with each other. As to their orientations, you can clearly see that Lian is bisexual, while Mar'i might be simply bi-curious.

For those of you who don't know who Lian Harper is, rest assured that she is not an original character. In Titans canon, she is Roy Harper's (Speedy/Arsenal) daughter with an assassin named Cheshire (Jade Nguyen). The alternate future depicted in the DC Elseworlds graphic novel Kingdom Come shows Lian following in her father's heroic footsteps as the Red Hood.

Olivia Queen, Black Canary III, also comes from the Kingdom Come timeline and is the daughter of Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Black Canary II (Dinah Lance). Like in this story, she is a cyborg. However, I didn't exactly know what she looked like as a cyborg – since all I know of Kingdom Come is what I've gathered from Wikipedia – so I made her more of a Ghost in the Shell-style cyborg.

Those of you who've read DC Comics ought to have an inkling as to who Power Woman is. For those of you who don't, the short explanation is that Power Woman is the identity an older Power Girl assumes in Kingdom Come. Explaining about Power Girl herself will take too much time, so I won't bother.

The idea of Olivia leading a superhero team under the guise of a music group was inspired by an animé called Bubblegum Crisis, in which the main characters are power-suited mercenaries in the guise of a music group. Then again, it's a general animé cliché: crime-fighters disguised as a type of person no one would suspect as a crime-fighter.

Olivia's line comparing Mar'i and Lian to Butch and Sundance was inspired by Grace Choi's remarks about Nightwing and Arsenal (Robin and Speedy) in the Outsiders comics.

If you've actually read the comics and you're wondering why Lian has red hair whereas most canon comic appearances have her with black hair, she had red hair in her first appearances. For some reason, a later colorist thought she'd look better with black hair and it stuck.

The Bureau of Metahuman Affairs, in name, is made up by me. In reality, it's based on several government organizations in the DCU that have attempted to regulate metahuman activity.

That's all out of me. See you with the next side story.


	7. Side Story 2: Nature of the Beast

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 2: "Nature of the Beast"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Mercury, and the Zookeeper do not belong to me. Everyone else, except for anyone you might recognize from DC comic or animated canon, belongs to me.

Author's note: It's Beast Girl's turn for the spotlight this time. If you're wondering why Beast Girl can morph into "hybrid" forms when her father never exhibited such abilities, you'll find out in this side story, as it will explain her past. Also, you'll get a deeper insight into her character.

* * *

It was happening again. The nightmare had come to her again. "No . . ." she moaned as she twisted and turned in the sheets of her bed. "No . . . stay back. Stay back . . . Don't touch me . . . don't . . . please . . ." Her pleas went unheard by the figure in her nightmare as he advanced on her. "No . . . stop . . . stop . . . STOP!"

Instantly, her door opened and a figure sped inside. He found her in her bed, twisting and turning. He rushed to her side and grabbed her shoulders. She began to struggle against him, screaming, "_Let go! Let go of me!_"

"Terri!" the figure shouted. "Terri! It's me! It's Peter!"

"Pe . . . ter?" Terri asked softly as she started to awaken from her nightmare. She looked into the face of her childhood friend and saw his amber eyes in the darkness. They glimmered with worry . . . for her.

"Yeah, it's me," Peter confirmed.

Terri was grateful that Peter couldn't see in the darkness, otherwise he'd know her dirty little secret, the secret she'd kept ever since those horrible few weeks four years ago. Hopefully, he would be so absorbed in his worry for her that he wouldn't notice that when he touched her, he wasn't exactly touching skin.

"What happened?" Peter inquired softly. "I heard you scream."

"It was nothing," Terri answered just as softly. "Just a nightmare. That's all it was."

"It must have been a pretty bad one," Peter commented.

"Yeah, but it's over now," Terri responded. "I'll be ok. You'd better go back to sleep."

"Actually, I've done all the sleeping I'm going to do," Peter contradicted. "I don't need to sleep as long as most people do, so I'm gonna go for a quick run around the world. See you around." A split second later, he was in his Mercury costume, and another fraction of a second later, he was gone.

Terri lay back in her bed and attempted to sleep. As it turned out, her efforts were in vain, as the figure in her nightmare haunted her too much to allow her to sleep.

* * *

In the morning, Terri rose from bed and entered the bathroom, brushing her teeth with her electric toothbrush. Samara soon followed, dressed in a diaphanous black nightgown. Terri internally sighed with envy, as Samara carried a certain aura of gothic elegance in addition to her forbiddingly dark beauty. Somehow, she always felt awkward in the older girl's presence.

"Bad dream?" Samara asked.

"How did you know?" Terri asked.

"Bags under your eyes," Samara replied simply. "You only get those when you don't sleep, and the only way _you_ wouldn't sleep would be if you had a really bad dream."

"It's nothing, Samara," Terri said. "I'm fine."

Samara reached out and gently touched the younger girl's shoulder. "I can help."

"Don't touch me," Terri murmured. "Please . . . don't touch me."

Samara withdrew her hand. "As you wish."

When the two girls arrived at the breakfast table, they saw Mercury – in costume but with the mask lowered like a hood – chomping on a bagel. Inferno was calmly eating waffles, Raziel was eating cereal, and Nightstar was reading the paper. Bladefire sat to the side, casually peeking over his twin's shoulder to see what she was reading. Samara prepared her herbal tea and Beast Girl prepared her tofu bacon and eggs.

"So how did you all sleep?" Nightstar asked.

Bladefire glanced at her briefly before responding in his most blasé voice, "Fine."

"I only got a few hours, but I think I'll be ok," Inferno interjected.

"What were you doing that you only slept for a few hours?" Samara asked.

"I was working on a counter to that flame retardant Ravager used on me," Inferno replied.

"Ok, but you shouldn't stay up so late," Samara cautioned.

"We're superheroes, Sam," Inferno said. "Getting a full eight hours of sleep is not in the job description."

"I know, but I don't want you staying up later than you have to," Samara insisted.

Mercury snickered, prompting a cross Inferno to ask, "What the hell is so funny?"

"You and Samara," Mercury answered with a grin. "If I didn't know better, I'd say she was like your wife or your mother or somewhere in between."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" Inferno asked.

Mercury laughed before finishing his bagel. "Yeah, I'm a pain in _somebody's_ ass, all right," he quipped with a wink in Beast Girl's direction.

Beast Girl growled. "Quit being such a pervert, Mercury."

Mercury looked at her askance. "What's your problem?"

"Enough, you two," Raziel spoke softly. "I'm trying to eat my breakfast and I can't do that if you two are arguing."

"Sorry," Beast Girl grumbled.

After breakfast was finished, Mercury slipped on rubber dishwasher gloves over his normal fingerless gloves and began washing the plates and bowls.

"So do you intend to go to school dressed like that?" Nightstar remarked.

"Nope," Mercury replied, quick-changing into a blue hoodie and jeans.

* * *

The Titans went to school and to their separate classes.

"So what can you tell me about Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan not once, but twice?" Mr. Johns, the American History teacher for Mercury and Beast Girl, asked.

"That it was wrong?" Mercury replied. "That it wasn't even about ending the war quickly but about making an example out of Japan? About telling the rest of the world, 'This is what awaits you if you even dream of messing with the U.S.'?"

"Interesting points," Johns remarked. "Does anyone have anything else to add to that?"

"Yeah," a boy dressed in khaki and chinos replied. "If Truman hadn't dropped the bomb on Japan, the war would have gone on even longer and more people would have died. Hell, if Johnson or Nixon had dropped the bomb on Vietnam, that war wouldn't have lasted ten years. Not saying it was right, because I doubt we needed to kill off that many people, but I'm saying that it kept even more people from dying."

"Speaking of dropping the bomb in World War II, does anybody seriously wonder why we didn't just obliterate Germany with it?" Mercury asked.

"Germany was already dead on its feet by the time we got the atomic bomb working," the khaki-and-chinos-clad boy explained. "It was the Japanese that still had it up for fighting. The bomb was our way of taking the fight out of them."

"We dropped it twice in a week," Beast Girl cut in. "Did we need to do that?"

"Possibly not," the boy admitted, "but to play devil's advocate, if somebody doesn't stop the first time they're punished for doing something they weren't supposed to do, you have to hit them again to get them to take you seriously."

"And that made it all right to kill a hundred thousand people and poison even more?" Beast Girl asked. "If someone other than us did that, they'd be our enemy for life, just for having that little regard for human life. But it was us and it ended the war, so who cares?"

"Speaking of double standards applied during wartime, why weren't we locking up everyone with a German last name like we did to Japanese-Americans?" a girl with blue-streaked black hair asked. "Oh, that's a dumb question. We could identify Japanese-Americans just by looking at them. German-Americans were Caucasian, so they blended in just fine."

"At the time, we thought the Japanese were an imminent threat," the boy stated. "They did bomb Pearl Harbor. The Germans, on the other hand, had done nothing to us except be allied with the Japanese and attack some of our own allies. We didn't have a stake in it until the Japanese blew up Pearl Harbor."

"And that made it right to put over a hundred thousand innocent people in concentration camps – not using weasel words like 'relocation' – for sharing the same ethnicity as the people who attacked us?" Mercury asked. "I hope you're not trying to make that sound ok, because there's nothing ok about locking up innocent people just because you're scared."

"True, but people do and accept a lot of things just because they're scared," the boy responded. "Like Black Adam invading Khandaq, massacring the leadership in place at the time, and setting himself up as the new ruler. I have yet to see anybody do anything about that, but I wouldn't want to mess with a guy capable of smacking around Superman."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Mercury questioned.

"People do what they think is right in a time of crisis," the boy explained. "And when they feel they have power, they feel they can do what they feel is right with impunity. Much like you meta-vigilantes, which makes you not so different from a superpower like this one, only you actually have superpowers."

Johns decided that was the moment to cut in. "That's an excellent point, but I'd like to stick to the original topic."

* * *

After class was over, Beast Girl was at her locker taking out her cyber-books for her next class. While there, she noticed a shadow obscure her vision. "You're in my light," she growled. "Mind getting out of it?"

"Whoa, babe, chill out," a deep, masculine voice replied. Beast Girl looked up at the source of the voice and saw a tall redheaded boy who, if one judged by appearance alone, had more muscles than brains. The white-and-blue jacket with the letter W emblazoned on the left breast identified him as a player for the Wolverines, Jump City High's football team.

"Don't call me babe," Beast Girl snarled.

"Man, why do you gotta be like that?" the boy asked. "I'm just trying to chat, start a little conversation, make a little connection. You know?"

"You're in my light and I have to get to class," Beast Girl hissed. "So please stop bothering me."

"If that's the way you wanna play it," the boy answered with a cocky edge to his voice. "Just one question and I'm gone."

"And what would that question be?" Beast Girl asked.

"Are you green all over?" the boy asked.

"PERVERT!" Beast Girl yelled and slapped him, her sharpened nails raking across his skin, eliciting a very satisfying cry of pain from him.

"Bitch, what the hell was that?" the boy asked, his tone indicating that he found the slap quite offensive.

"I don't like perverts," Beast Girl growled.

"I'm suing you," the boy declared. "I'm going to sue the pants off you!"

"What makes you think I'd give you my pants?" Beast Girl asked nastily.

"Just you wait," the boy stated. "Just you wait." He fled into the halls of Jump City High, leaving Beast Girl to pick up her books and walk to her next class.

* * *

At lunch, Beast Girl calmly ate her tofu lunch. A soft breeze blowing by her indicated that a familiar speedster had arrived. "So what's this I hear about you making Carl Kless bleed?" he asked, his voice devoid of its normal levity and cockiness.

"He was being a pervert," Beast Girl replied evenly. "Just like you, but less charming."

"You find me charming?" Mercury asked in shock. He shook his head as though trying to ward off demons and looked back into Beast Girl's golden eyes with his amber orbs. "Please don't distract me. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Beast Girl answered simply. "Carl was just being a pervert."

"So that warrants you slapping him?" Mercury asked. "And why haven't you ever slapped me for my remarks?"

"One: You're too fast for me to slap," the shape-shifter-slash-geomancer replied. "Two: You somehow manage to be cute when you're being a pervert. Carl is just a sleazebag, so he deserved it."

"Won't argue with that," Mercury conceded. "But that's a little out of character for you."

Beast Girl's eyes narrowed dangerously. "And what, _Mercury,_ makes you think you know me so well?"

"Nothing except for the small fact that you and I grew up together," Mercury replied.

At that moment, the other Titans arrived at the table. "The principal wants to see you," Nightstar told Beast Girl. "And the rest of us as well."

"Why the rest of us?" Samara asked. "Terri was the one that slapped him."

* * *

The seven Titans all found themselves sitting in the office of Principal Elizabeth Alderman. "Do you understand the magnitude of what you've done?" Alderman asked, peering at the green-skinned girl through her large glasses.

"I slapped one pervert," Beast Girl answered unrepentantly. "No big deal."

"Oh, it is a _very_ big deal, you arrogant child," Alderman declared. "The only reason the seven of you are allowed to attend this school at all is that historically, the Titans have had very good standing with the city. In addition, the antidiscrimination laws prevented me from denying you lot the 'right' to an education just because you're metahumans. However, I do have the right to ensure the safety of the _normal_ humans attending and working at this school, meaning I can still suspend or expel metahumans who prove themselves a threat to those humans."

"So what does that mean?" Nightstar inquired, although she had the sinking feeling she knew the answer already. The chilling smirk on Alderman's face told them all they needed to know.

"You're suspended, Theresa Logan," Alderman stated. "Finish your lunch, then get your things and leave. I don't want to see you for another two weeks."

"You – this – it's . . ." Beast Girl tried to speak but couldn't string together a sentence. She rose from her seat and dashed out of Alderman's office.

"You bitch," Mercury spat, his voice filled with venom that no one who knew him would suspect he had.

"You want to join your little girlfriend, Peter Allen?" Alderman inquired, that same unnerving smirk still on her face.

Mercury stared right into the face of that smirk. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? Making us suffer. Picking on us just for being born different from everyone else."

"Keep talking, Mr. Allen," Alderman encouraged sarcastically. "You're just giving me more and more rope to hang you with."

Mercury just glared at her before speeding out of the principal's office.

"You're not supposed to use your metahuman powers in this school, boy!" Alderman shouted after him.

"Does this satisfy you, Principal Alderman?" a disturbingly wintry voice asked her.

Principal Alderman turned to the source of that voice. "Mr. Crestmore, if indeed that is your real name, what presumption have you decided to volley at me?"

"I make no presumptions," Uriel answered. "I only state the facts, the facts being that you hate us. You hate our kind. And why? You fear us for what we can do, for any one of us could easily avenge Theresa on this travesty of a school . . . and on you."

"Is that a threat, Mr. Crestmore?" Alderman asked. "If so, I can have you suspended along with Miss Logan."

"And what would that prove?" Uriel asked. "That you're a creature led by your base prejudices." He leaned forward into his seat, meeting her unnerving smirk with his eerily arctic expression.

"How dare you talk to me like that!" Alderman exclaimed, her face twisting in outrage. "I am merely attempting to ensure the safety of the people who attend and work at this school!"

"So you say," Uriel sneered. "So you say."

Alderman's face settled into an eerie calm. "You five – along with Peter Allen – are free to leave and continue with your classes for the rest of the day. If I hear about any more disturbances involving you, I will suspend you just like I did Miss Logan."

The five Titans exited the principal's office without another word.

* * *

At her locker, Beast Girl wept silent bitter tears. "It's not fair," she murmured. "I didn't ask for this."

She felt someone turn her around gently and wrap their arms around her. Instinctively, Beast Girl started to pull out of that person's embrace. A brief inhalation of the scents around her let her know who that person was, allowing her to relax slightly.

"Peter . . ." she murmured.

Mercury stroked her flaxen locks gently. "It's ok, Terri. It's ok . . . I'll take you home and keep you company, ok?"

"S-sure," Beast Girl answered shakily.

* * *

Back at Titans Tower, Mercury breezed through the mail, reading it at super-speed.

"You know you're not supposed to read everybody's mail, right?" Beast Girl asked.

Mercury grinned. "I can't help it. I just like reading, especially . . ." He trailed off, gazing intently at an envelope. His voice turned severe and lowered by a few octaves. "It's for you."

Beast Girl took the envelope and looked at the return address, zeroing in on the name at the top. "Dr. Samuel Register . . ." she murmured. "No . . . how did he find me?"

"Register?" Mercury asked. "Who's that?"

"No one you need to worry about," Beast Girl answered hastily. "I'd like to be alone now, if you don't mind."

"Sure," Mercury uttered hesitantly before speeding out of the common room.

Beast Girl opened the envelope with her nail and removed the letter from it, unfolding it and beginning to read.

"To my sweet Theresa,

"It's been such a long time since we last had the opportunity to speak. I've been watching you and I must say that you are everything I ever hoped for and more. Meet me on top of Silver Tower tonight at 8. I'd advise you to come alone, as bringing your friends – particularly the speed brat – could be very dangerous . . . for both you and them.

"I'll see you soon.

"Signed,

Dr. Samuel Register"

Beast Girl crumpled up the letter, her eyes filled with angry tears.

"Eleven years old . . ." she muttered. "I was only a child and he still has me marked."

* * *

"You should talk to her."

"I would, except I don't know what to say."

"Peter Allen, haven't you learned yet that sometimes you can give comfort better when you're not running your mouth?"

The amber-eyed speedster glanced at the silver-haired psychic. "Good point." A blur of blue and white later and he was at Beast Girl's door. "Terri?" He knocked rapidly yet gently. "You want me to come in?"

There was no answer, which worried Mercury deeply. It just wasn't like Beast Girl not to answer him at all. "Maybe she's napping and I shouldn't bother her," he muttered. He turned to walk away, only to bump into Samara. "Sorry."

"All right," Samara said. "What are you doing outside Beast Girl's door?"

"I wanted to talk to her," Mercury replied.

"She's going through a rough day," Samara stated. "That nightmare, that pervert, that bitch Alderman taking her hate for metahumans out on her . . . if you're going to act like your usual idiotic self, you're not going through that door."

"Speaking of Alderman, why didn't you do anything?" Mercury asked angrily. "Why didn't Mar'i do anything about her?"

"We couldn't," Samara replied simply.

"Why not?" Mercury asked sharply.

"Because as much as we hate it, Alderman is a legitimately recognized authority figure," Samara answered. "Unless she blatantly steps outside the bounds of her authority, we can't do anything."

"But she suspended Terri just for slapping that pervert Kless!" Mercury yelled. "Can you honestly say that a normal human girl wouldn't have received the same punishment?"

"Normal human girls are the kind that fall over themselves for someone like Kless," Samara answered with a cruel sneer. "As for your question, she would have just gotten detention. We can argue all we want that Alderman's actions were excessive, but she didn't actually step outside the bounds of her authority."

"Well, we'll just sue the school!" Mercury asserted. "Bring the ACLU in; tell them that Terri's rights are being violated just because she's a meta!"

"Your dedication to her is truly awe-inspiring," Samara complimented with a soft smile. "All right, we'll see Terri together." She looked intently at the door, her eyes flashing white. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Mercury echoed. "_Gone?_ How the hell can she be gone?"

"If she flew out the window as a bird or a harpy," Samara answered harshly, giving him one of her patented "You're a goddamn moron and I ought to kill you for it" stares.

Mercury vibrated through the door and looked around Beast Girl's room. There was no trace of her, save for a message on her laptop. He sped to the laptop and read the message.

"I have to go now. I don't know if I'll come back. For your sakes as well as mine, don't follow me."

Mercury noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the floor of Beast Girl's room, which wasn't that tidy. He picked it up and un-crumpled it, speeding through the message.

"Damn it," he snarled and vibrated through the door again, entering the hallway. "She got a letter, before you and the others got back from school."

"Did you find out who it was from?" Samara asked.

"Someone named Dr. Samuel Register," Mercury replied. "I have the message here." He handed it to her.

"This sick bastard sounds like he knows her," Samara said. "We have to tell the other Titans."

* * *

Meanwhile, Beast Girl landed on top of Silver Tower as a harpy. Upon landing, she reverted to human form.

"Now, Theresa, I know that that's not the real you," a slithery, morbidly soothing voice greeted from within the darkness. "Come on and show Daddy what you really look like."

"You're not my father," Beast Girl hissed. "And don't call me Theresa."

"I'll call you whatever I like," the voice stated, hardening. It softened when it spoke again. "Please, Theresa. I did not call you here so we could fight. I called you here so we could talk."

"Talk about what, you sick son of a bitch?" Beast Girl asked. "You violated me, turned me inside out for a science project."

"Yes and look at how you've benefited," the voice added. "You can tap into the power of the animal kingdom without having to completely abandon your human form, a skill that I myself have yet to master."

"_And look what you've done to me!_" Beast Girl screamed, her body growing a light coat of green fur. Her hands and feet grew, coming to resemble cat's paws with clawed human fingers and toes attached. A green tail sprouted from her backside as her ears migrated to the top of her head and shifted into cat's ears.

The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows, revealing the scaly purple features of Dr. Samuel Register . . . the Zookeeper. "You are absolutely beautiful," the Zookeeper uttered. "Even more so than four years ago."

"I should kill you," Beast Girl snarled. "I should kill you for what you did to me."

"But you won't," the Zookeeper declared confidently. "Hero's code, remember?"

Beast Girl lunged at the Zookeeper, her claws aimed for his throat. The Zookeeper morphed into a purple serpent and evaded her attack, coming at her as a tiger and slashing at her. Beast Girl evaded the slash and retaliated with a swipe of her claws. The Zookeeper morphed into a rhinoceros, using his new form's thick hide to bear the brunt of his younger counterpart's attack. Beast Girl aimed a vicious claw strike to the Zookeeper's eye, but he eluded it by becoming a monkey and leaping out of her way.

The Zookeeper jumped off Silver Tower, landing on the street as an elephant and crushing any cars unlucky enough to be directly below him. Beast Girl jumped after him, morphing into a harpy and landing on him with her talons extended. The Zookeeper shifted into a lion and slashed at Beast Girl, who flew out of the range of his claws before zipping in and ramming him with her head.

The purple shape-changer morphed into a stegosaurus and lashed at Beast Girl with his tail. However, the blonde shape-changer jumped over his tail and kicked him viciously in his side. Unfortunately, the kick barely fazed him.

The Zookeeper changed into a jaguar and dashed at Beast Girl, who charged at him as a cheetah. The two uniquely colored felines collided and proceeded to scratch and tear at each other.

As the fight went on, the normal citizens fled in ever-increasing numbers. Even those that had initially stuck around to see the fight, as they thought superhero/super-villain fights were something exciting, were now trying to get away from the scene.

It was this same scene that the other six Titans happened upon.

"I warned you, Theresa!" the Zookeeper roared as he changed back to his human form. "I warned you that the consequences wouldn't be pleasant if your friends showed up!"

Beast Girl had shifted back to her human form as well with a distressed look on her face. "You shouldn't have come here!"

"Titan Rule #1, Beast Girl," Mercury said. "A Titan will not stand by while another Titan is in danger."

"Ah, so you're the boy that has stolen my Theresa's heart," the Zookeeper hissed.

"I don't know what you're talking about, you sicko, but you're not touching her," Mercury declared.

The Zookeeper morphed into a boa constrictor and slithered at Mercury, intending to choke the young speedster. The result was that Mercury grabbed him and twisted him into a bow. While Mercury was grinning widely at his accomplishment, the Zookeeper shifted into a smaller cobra and lunged at his arm, only to be stopped by a small needle puncturing his scales like a bullet. The Zookeeper reverted to a profusely bleeding human form.

"You're a sick man, Dr. Register," Raziel remarked. "A child . . . _a child._ Monster."

"You may think me such, boy, but I am close," the Zookeeper murmured as he bled. "So close . . ."

"Should we take him to a hospital?" Inferno asked.

"Why?" Beast Girl asked. "He's a monster. A sick, twisted bastard. I say we let him bleed."

"We can't do that, Ter," Mercury answered. "If we do, we end up as bad as he is."

"You do realize that you could be using this time to get him to a hospital, don't you?" Samara interjected.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea," Nightstar spoke up.

"Does that mean you agree with Beast Girl?" Bladefire asked.

"No, but we'd have to put him in the prison ward of the hospital and I doubt that'd be able to hold him," Nightstar answered.

While the Titans debated the fate of the Zookeeper, Samara walked over to him and placed her glowing lavender hand on his wound. The blood flowed back into the wound as it closed. Catching the confused and/or discontented looks on the other Titans' faces, she simply said, "When we became Titans, we took an oath to save lives. Nowhere in that oath did it say that we didn't have to save the people we find repulsive."

* * *

The Titans regrouped at the Tower. "What did Register do to you?" Inferno asked softly.

"Remember when I disappeared for two weeks when I was eleven?" Beast Girl asked.

"Yeah," Mercury replied. "We were all really worried."

"Register kidnapped me," Beast Girl explained. "Claimed that he was an old friend from my dad's side of the family and that he was gonna take me home for him. I was so naïve that I fell for it. Next thing I knew, I was strapped to a lab table.

"He wanted to unlock the secrets of the animal kingdom. He believed I was the key to that since 'the future lies with the children' and all that. So he unraveled my DNA again and again and kept putting it back together in all kinds of patterns. By the time he was through, I could barely recognize myself.

"My parents, as well as yours, managed to save me from him but the damage was already done. My powers were changed . . . that's why I can take hybrid forms instead of shifting all the way into animal form. Also, this isn't what I really look like anymore."

"What do you really look like, then?" Mercury asked.

"You'll think I'm a monster," Beast Girl replied. "I certainly do."

"It's all right," Nightstar said. "We're all monsters in our own way, anyway."

Beast Girl's human form melted away, replaced by an anthropomorphic green feline. She blushed and turned away in shame, only to feel a hand gently reach under her chin and turn her face toward the person attached to it.

"I don't think you're a monster," Mercury whispered softly, embracing Beast Girl's furry form.

* * *

End Notes: Ok, so that was a sappy way to end this one-shot. However, the sap was necessary after the nigh-relentless angst to which I subjected you lot.

First, Dr. Samuel Register, alias the Zookeeper, is a creation of the recent Teen Titans comics. The basic story is that he was a friend of Mark and Marie Logan (Beast Boy's parents) and that when he saw what Beast Boy could do, he became determined to unlock the secrets of the animal kingdom through him. In the process, he infected himself with Sakutia, the same disease that had made Beast Boy what he was, and ended up spreading it to the local children, who couldn't control their newfound animal-shifting abilities the way Beast Boy could. In this storyline, Beast Boy was temporarily cured of Sakutia and restored to his former human appearance, but he infected himself again to stop Register.

Second, Elizabeth Alderman is a creation of the Titans comics as well, specifically the New Titans period. In those comics, she was a councilwoman with ambitions of becoming mayor . . . and she ran on an anti-Titans platform. Remembering what X-Men: Evolution did to a certain senator of X-Men lore, I made Alderman the metahuman-hating principal of the Titans' school.

That's it out of me. Feel free to tell me what you thought of this story, both good and bad.


	8. Side Story 3: A Titanic Christmas

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 3: "A Titanic Christmas"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Mercury, and anyone else you might recall from the DCU (comic or animated) do not belong to me. Everyone else is mine.

Author's note: Christmas is coming, so I figured I'd write a story for it with the characters I borrowed or invented for this story. I have no more to say besides that, so I might as well get on with the story. Peace and goodwill toward all.

* * *

"I'm home!" Nightstar announced, holding a giant Christmas tree above her head.

"It always creeps me out just how strong you are," Mercury remarked.

"You saying you don't like strong girls?" Nightstar asked in a teasingly threatening voice.

"No, no, no!" Mercury replied, waving his hands frantically. "I'm not saying that at all!"

Everyone else laughed merrily, even Beast Girl.

"_Et tu,_ Terri?" Mercury asked in mock hurt, dramatically clutching his chest for good measure.

"Been watching the life and times of Julius Caesar again, Peter?" Inferno asked.

Nightstar carried the tree into the common room and planted it peripheral to the center. "Who's ready to decorate?"

Mercury sped away and returned a few seconds later with multicolored Christmas lights. Nightstar took the lights from him and flew around the tree, wrapping it in the lights. Bladefire came with the ornaments and painstakingly decorated the tree with them. Samara telekinetically levitated an angel ornament onto the top of the tree. Beast Girl plugged in the lights and they all shone brightly.

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?" Mercury sang. "In the rain, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight. Walking in a winter wonderland."

"Stop singing," Samara growled. "You suck."

Mercury glared. "It's not my fault you don't have any Christmas spirit."

"Excuse me for not giving in to the crass commercialism that characterizes this holiday," Samara sneered.

"You have got to be the most arrogant girl I ever met," Mercury declared.

"Many have told me that before," Samara answered nonchalantly.

Inferno darted between the two. "It's the holidays."

"So we should get along because of some commercialized holiday?" Samara asked.

"No, we should get along because we've spent most of our lives together and there're more important things to argue about than the fact that Mercury is tone deaf," Inferno replied.

"I'm not tone deaf!" Mercury protested.

"Mercury, get voice lessons," Inferno stated briskly. "Samara, try not to be mean to anyone. I know you don't like Christmas, but please don't ruin it for the rest of us."

Samara let out a sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a sigh. "Fine. I'll leave your precious holiday alone."

Nightstar began to sing. The language was foreign but it did not sound unpleasant at all.

"What's that?" Raziel asked.

"A Tamaranean song my mother taught me," Nightstar replied. "When she heard me sing it, she said I had a better voice than she did." She resumed the song, her voice rising through the refrain. Bladefire joined her, adding his deep tenor to Nightstar's alto. When the twins finished, the other five Titans applauded.

"If the superhero thing doesn't work out, you could just hook up with the Steel Angels," Beast Girl remarked.

"Thanks," Nightstar answered. "Anyway, we'd better hurry up and get changed."

"Why?" Mercury asked.

"You forgot?" Samara asked. Catching the confused glance from Mercury, she sighed. "The Steel Angels are doing a charity tour for the next week and a half until Christmas, raising money to save a homeless shelter, and they'll be here for the next two days. They want us to help collect the charity money and we're supposed to be dressed up in Christmas outfits."

"Oh," Mercury uttered. "Do we have to dress as elves?"

"No," Nightstar replied. "I've already designed our outfits and none of them are elves."

* * *

The Titans arrived at the amphitheater where the Steel Angels' benefit concert was to occur. All of them were dressed in Christmas-themed versions of their combat attire.

Nightstar wore a red bustier and miniskirt with white fur trim, a thick black belt, and thick black boots. Bladefire wore a red sleeveless sweatshirt with the hood trimmed in white fur and red pants with black boots. Beast Girl wore a midriff-baring red shirt with a low collar trimmed in white fur and low-rise red pants with black boots. Samara wore a red cloak trimmed in white fur over a red short-skirted dress with the hem trimmed in white fur and black boots. Mercury and Inferno chose to wear their normal outfits but with Santa Claus caps on their heads. Raziel wore a red jacket trimmed in white fur over his usual black clothes.

And all the Titans wore Santa hats on their heads.

"Hey, you're here!" Mallory Duncan, alias Hornet, greeted. She ditched her keyboard and ran up to Nightstar, high-fiving the Titan leader.

"Hey, Mal, how've you been?" Nightstar asked.

"I've been doing good," Mallory replied.

The Amazonian warrior known as Avia Free rose from her drum set and strode over to the Titans, who had to look up at her due to the fact that she was 6'4" and Raziel – the tallest of them – was only 5'10".

"Hello," she greeted.

"You're . . . tall," Mercury uttered dumbly.

Avia narrowed her eyes. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, not at all," Mercury answered sheepishly.

Avia suddenly giggled.

"What's so funny?" Mercury asked.

"You," Avia replied, reaching around and pinching his butt, causing him to yelp in surprise. That just made the Amazon-esque New God giggle even more.

Beast Girl glared at the much taller girl.

"Avia," Nightstar spoke. "It's been a while."

"Indeed, it has, Mar'i," Avia answered. "How are you and the Titans doing?"

"We're doing all right," Nightstar replied.

Avia grew serious. "I've missed you. Olivia's missed you, too."

"I know," Nightstar admitted. "I've missed you both, too. It's just that with all the Titans missions and that assassin Ravager . . . I haven't had so much free time on my hands."

"Try to make time, then," Olivia remarked as she entered, guitar slung around her shoulders.

Nightstar smiled softly. "I will. You guys can come to the Tower on Christmas Day. Bring your parents or other friends if you like."

"Sure," Avia replied. She leaned down and whispered in the half-Tamaranean girl's ear, "And you'd better be ready for a spar. We'll see if you've gotten any better."

"Bet on it, Avia," Nightstar whispered back.

"What are they whispering about?" Mercury wondered.

"Anyone goes off about their lesbian fantasies – I'm looking at you, Memnoch – and I'll rip out their vocal cords," Bladefire declared. "That's my sister you'd be talking about, you perverts."

"I'll keep him in the cage," Raziel somberly vowed.

"Good," Bladefire stated.

"We'd better get to the stage," Olivia said. "The audience is waiting for us."

Speaking of the audience, thousands of fans had crowded into the amphitheater to watch the Steel Angels, who took their places on the stage.

"Everyone ready to get in the spirit?" Olivia asked, wearing a throat mike so that she wouldn't be bound to one spot on the stage.

The answer she received was a resounding roar of applause. Olivia strummed her guitar, playing a few notes, followed by Avia thundering on the drums and Mallory weaving an ethereal melody on her keyboard. After about forty-five seconds of this, Olivia began to sing.

_Deck the halls with boughs of holly_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

'_Tis the season to be jolly_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Don we now our gay apparel_

_Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la-la-la_

_Troll the ancient Yule-tide carol_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_See the blazing Yule before us_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Strike the harp and join the chorus_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Follow me in merry measure_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_While I tell of Yule-tide treasure_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Fast away, the old year passes_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Hail the new year, lads and lasses_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Sing we joyous, all together_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la_

_Heedless of the wind and weather_

_Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!_

The audience applauded raucously as the Steel Angels finished "Deck the Halls."

Olivia grinned. "This next song goes out to a guy I've had my eye on for a while. I won't say who he is, but he makes magic sexy . . . and I'm absolutely hot for him."

Once again, she began to sing.

_What I want for Christmas can't be bought_

_What I want for Christmas can't be sold_

_What I want for Christmas I've so long sought_

_I just want you to hold_

_Come on, Santa, give me my angel_

_Give me the man who makes my heart race_

_All I want in this world_

_Is just to see his beautiful face_

_Come on, my sexy mage_

_Come and hold me tight_

_Come on, my angel babe_

_Come to me this Christmas night_

_Come on, Santa, give me my angel_

_Give me the man who makes my heart race_

_All I want in this world_

_Is just to see his beautiful face_

_All I want in this world . . ._

_Is just to see his beautiful face_

_Santa can't make me happy with toys_

_He can't make me happy with the world to call mine_

_The only thing he can give me that'll make me happy . . ._

_Is_ _you to make me fine_

_Come on, Santa, give me my angel_

_Give me the man who makes my heart race_

_All I want in this world_

_Is just to see his beautiful face_

_Come on, Santa, give me my angel_

_Give me the man who makes my heart race_

_All I want in this world_

_Is just to see his beautiful face. . . ._

"That . . . was a beautiful song," Samara uttered.

"I thought you didn't like Christmas," Inferno remarked.

"I don't," Samara stated. "However, I can appreciate sincerity . . . and Olivia was oozing sincerity with that song."

"Who was she talking about?" Mercury asked.

"She alluded to a sorcerer," Nightstar replied. "She could have meant Zatara II."

"You mean John Zatara?" Samara asked.

"Yeah," Nightstar confirmed.

After the concert was over, Mercury counted the money they'd collected from those that had attended. "This ought to go a long way toward saving that shelter."

"Yeah," Inferno agreed.

Mercury grinned at Beast Girl. "You look cute in that outfit."

"Thanks," Beast Girl responded. She pulled Mercury down and, blushing the whole time, whispered in his ear, "You mind if you come to my room wearing nothing but that hat?"

This brought a deep blush to Mercury's face. "Uhhhhh . . ."

Beast Girl giggled. "Now who's the pervert, hmm?"

"I'm rubbing off on you, aren't I?" Mercury remarked.

"Yeah, you've certainly corrupted me," was the shape-changer's impish response.

"Thanks for helping out," Olivia said.

"Anything for you," Nightstar answered.

Olivia blushed. "Why, Mar'i, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were propositioning me."

"Heh, no, I didn't mean it like that," Nightstar denied. "Guess I should have chosen my words better."

"It's all right," Olivia remarked with a grin. "I like teasing you."

"Oh, you just like teasing any attractive girl," Mallory commented.

"I can't help it, Mal," Olivia stated as she reached out and played with one of Mallory's two braids. "It's just so much fun to see their reactions."

"You're incorrigible, you know that?" Mallory declared.

"Yeah, I am," Olivia shot back lightly. "What are you gonna do?"

Mallory grinned and held up a hand whose fingers were connected by tiny streams of bioelectric energy. Olivia sucked in a deep breath.

"You two can do that somewhere other than here," Avia spoke as she stepped between Mallory and Olivia. Olivia exhaled harmlessly while Mallory defused herself.

"Does this happen often?" Raziel asked.

"Yeah," Avia replied. "The price of dealing with such strong personalities, particularly when one of those personalities happens to be such a tease. Most of the time, it's just for the fun of it and not really because either one of them feels like hurting the other."

"Reminds me of me and Iris," Mercury remarked. "Or me and Adam. Or me and Jenny. Or Iris and Jenny. Or Iris and Adam. Or Adam and Jenny. We're all always trying to see who's the fastest of us. Mostly for fun and not because we're all a bunch of hypercompetitive maniacs. Although that description might fit Jenny."

"So am I going to see you guys for Christmas?" Nightstar asked.

"Sure," Olivia replied. "I'll bring Lian."

"Now how did you know I was going to ask about her?" Nightstar inquired.

"Because you two were practically joined at the hip when you were younger," Olivia responded. "You're like sisters, for crying out loud."

"With the way Lian flirts with me, we'd be committing incest if we were sisters," Nightstar remarked.

"I suppose you have a point there," Olivia conceded. "See you on 25."

* * *

The next day, the Titans congregated in the common room. Nightstar stood before the other six holding a bowl containing seven red and green strips of paper.

"What's this?" Samara asked.

"Secret Santa," Nightstar replied.

"I told you once, I told you twice, I told you thrice – I am _not_ getting involved in the crass commercialism of this holiday," Samara declared.

"It's not 'crass commercialism!'" Nightstar exclaimed. "We are simply going to get presents for each other out of the goodness in our hearts . . . and we'll all get presents, so we all win."

Samara harshly exhaled. "Christmas isn't even the day Jesus Christ was born. In the B.C. era, the Romans celebrated that day as Saturnalia, which was dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture."

"So?" Beast Girl asked. "I could care less about how they came up with the idea of Christmas. I just wanna celebrate, drink eggnog, and maybe make out with Mercury."

"Maybe?" Mercury asked with a slight note of hope in his voice.

"Everyone pick a name out of this bowl," Nightstar instructed. "And don't say who you picked. Otherwise, you all put the names back in and we start all over again."

One by one, the Titans reached into the bowl and removed a red or green strip of paper. Mercury looked at the name on his strip and let out a "Hell yeah!"

"Three guesses who you got and I'm saying nothing," Bladefire remarked.

"If you happen to be shopping for a girl, stay away from Valentine's Treasure," Nightstar instructed. "If you choose not to stay away, at least keep whatever you buy out of the sight of our parents. They'll be coming on Christmas Day and I don't feel like being scolded because they think we're nothing but balls of raging hormones."

"Yes, Mom," Mercury droned.

* * *

The next day after school and homework, Bladefire found himself in a shop that sold martial arts weapons, such as escrima sticks, Bo staffs, nunchaku, shuriken, and even katana.

"Beautiful weapons, aren't they?" a familiar voice, silky and feminine, remarked.

Bladefire looked into the faint reflection in the glass and saw The Ravager standing next to and slightly behind him, dressed in a black vinyl jacket over a gray shirt and black jeans.

"Rose?" Bladefire uttered in hushed astonishment. "What are you doing here?"

"Just browsing," Rose replied softly. "Christmas shopping, lover?"

"Yeah," Bladefire confirmed.

"For whom?" Rose inquired.

"Don't see any need to tell you that," Bladefire answered curtly.

"I'm hurt," Rose said. "You let me take your virginity, but you won't tell me for whom you're shopping? I thought we had something."

"Please don't get started," Bladefire sighed. "Please don't."

"Do you regret it?" Rose asked. "Our night together?"

"Don't ask me that," Bladefire requested.

"_Do you or don't you?_" Rose insisted.

"It was a mistake," Bladefire answered. "A moment of weakness and a desire to be close to someone. The irony is that I don't regret it at all. I should. Any rational person should regret it, but I don't. I honestly don't and therefore, I doubt my rationality."

Rose pulled a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket and slipped it into Bladefire's hand. "Meet me at the address on this slip on Christmas night. We'll have our own _private_ celebration."

The emphasis on the word "private," combined with the smoldering look in her singular blue eye, sent chills down Bladefire's spine . . . and not the unpleasant kind, which worried him a great deal.

"I'll see you there," he finally spoke.

"Good," Rose answered with a Cheshire grin. "And by the way, I recommend the escrima sticks." With that said, she sauntered out of the martial arts shop, leaving a befuddled Bladefire behind.

* * *

Meanwhile, a civvies-clad Mercury was speeding through the mall, moving faster than the naked eye could see. To his delight, his movements left behind a strong enough breeze to momentarily blow up the skirts of any women he passed. He raced into Game HQ and searched through the stacks for a fantasy RPG called _Chaos Heart VIII,_ which centered on the students of an academy that trained ninja for "a kingdom hidden in the mist." He picked it up and dashed into a line, waiting not-so-patiently for everyone else to be finished with their purchases so he could buy _Chaos Heart VIII._

"Holy crap, it's Mercury!" someone in Game HQ shouted.

Mercury sighed. _The price of having a public identity: being recognizable out of costume._

"What are you doing in line?" a messy-haired boy asked. "You oughtta be in front."

"I don't think so," Mercury answered. "The line isn't so long. Just you and one other guy besides me."

"No, come on," the other guy, a tall boy with dyed blue hair, said. "You can go ahead."

"No, really, I'm fine," Mercury insisted.

"You can go ahead of us," the blue-haired boy persisted. "We wouldn't wanna delay you in case you get called to save some lives."

"Now that you put it that way . . . I suppose I'll take your offer," Mercury conceded. He moved ahead of them and planted _Chaos Heart VIII_ on the counter.

The cashier rang it up with an electronic scanner and smiled at Mercury. "That would be $49.99, but with the twenty percent discount, you just have to pay $39.99 plus tax."

Mercury slapped down a crisp $50 bill on the counter. The cashier took the bill and placed it in the cash register, proceeding to calculate the amount of change. She gave him back seven dollars and eleven cents and _Chaos Heart VIII_ bagged.

"Thank you and have a nice day," she said.

"You're welcome," Mercury answered with a wink. He briskly walked out of Game HQ and to his _other_ destination, the aforesaid destination being Valentine's Treasure. Fighting off a blush at the sight of so many enticing articles of not-quite-clothing designed for the female form, the platinum-haired speedster bravely marched through the store. After about five minutes of speed searching, he found a forest green satin negligee and bikini-style satin panties.

"Hi," a young saleswoman greeted.

Mercury nearly jumped when he heard her voice but turned to face the saleswoman. "Hi," he greeted back slightly shakily.

"Is this your first time?" the saleswoman asked with a friendly smile on her face.

"My first time what?" Mercury prompted.

"Buying underwear for your girlfriend," the saleswoman elaborated.

"Yeah," Mercury admitted. "It's a Christmas present."

"That's sweet," the saleswoman remarked. "I hope she likes it."

"Thanks," Mercury answered, some of his embarrassment fading. "I hope she likes it, too."

* * *

Christmas morning came and all the Titans had finished buying presents for each other by Christmas Eve. Nightstar awoke first, greeting the sun with a smile. She flew out the window and onto the rooftop, where she stood before the sun and bathed in its rays. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Bladefire doing the same in just his boxers.

About two hours later, the other Titans awakened and ambled down the stairs to the common room, spotting all the presents under the Christmas tree. Mercury darted to the gifts and began opening his. The first present he unwrapped was . . .

"Sweet! _Tournament of Darkness III!_" the speedster exclaimed.

Samara unwrapped her present with a bored expression on her face. Her expression of mixed disdain and boredom lightened into surprise and secret joy when she saw what her Secret Santa had gotten for her.

"The latest album from Savage Spiral," she murmured. "Whoever got me knows what I like."

Inferno whistled innocently as he burned through the gift wrapping to get at his present, which turned out to be a highly advanced chemistry set. "Whoever got me this, thanks!"

Beast Girl opened her gift bag and dug through the layers of chiffon to find a satiny negligee and panties. Blushing heavily, she asked, "Ok, whose brilliant idea was it to buy me this?"

"Mine," Mercury admitted. "Like it?"

"I'm not sure whether I should hit you or kiss you," Beast Girl replied.

"Can't you do both?" Mercury asked with a grin.

"You're incorrigible," Beast Girl stated.

Mercury leaned over and whispered in Beast Girl's ear, "You're the one who suggested that I come to your room tonight in nothing but a Santa hat."

Beast Girl blushed an even deeper red at the memory. "Oh, yeah. So are you?"

"I would, but we've only been dating for a few months," Mercury admitted. "I'm starting to think we might be rushing things."

"Were you thinking that when you bought me these?" Beast Girl inquired, holding up the negligee and panties.

"Hey, keep those out of the sight of our parents," Nightstar suggested as she and Bladefire came down the stairs from their sunbathing.

Bladefire sighed tolerantly. "Just like you, Peter. Just like you."

Beast Girl stuffed the negligee and panties back into the bag and covered it up with the layers of chiffon. She crouched in front of the remaining presents and found another one addressed to her. Tearing through the wrapping with her sharpened nails, she found _Chaos Heart VIII._

"Thanks!" she exclaimed, hugging Mercury.

"You're welcome," Mercury answered. Leaning to whisper in her ear, he added, "You're not as uncomfortable about being touched as you used to be."

"Not with you," Beast Girl whispered back. "You'd never hurt me."

"I'm glad you know that," Mercury spoke softly. "Merry Christmas, Terri."

"Merry Christmas, Peter," Beast Girl answered before kissing him chastely on the lips.

Bladefire found a present addressed to him and removed the gift wrapping, revealing two boxes, one short and one long. He opened the short box and found a set of kunai, shuriken, and explosive powders. He opened the longer box and found a katana with a sleek, polished blade. He also found a note addressed to him.

"Hey, Blade, come to the address I gave you when we last spoke. Bring the sword. –R."

Nightstar opened her gift-wrapped box and found a pair of escrima sticks.

Raziel opened his present, revealing it to be the latest volume of _Digitize,_ a cyber-manga about teen hackers battling corporate oppression with the help of a mysterious AI in the form of a pink-haired girl.

Bladefire opened another box and found the box set of the second _Hellsing_ animé.

"All right, if we're done unwrapping our presents, we'd better shower and get dressed," Nightstar suggested.

So the Titans went to the communal showers, which were divided by gender. After that, they all went to their rooms and dressed in their uniforms.

The first guests to come through the door were Richard and Barbara Grayson, along with Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Roy and Lian Harper.

"Hi, Mar'i, Joh'n," Richard greeted. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Dad," Nightstar answered. She looked at Barbara and added, "You, too."

"Merry Christmas, Uncle Tim, Aunt Stephanie," Bladefire greeted.

"Merry Christmas," Tim responded.

Stephanie pulled a snow globe out of her bag and gave it to Bladefire, who gratefully accepted it from her. He shook it gently and the artificial snowflakes inside fluttered around inside the globe.

Nightstar and Lian embraced. "Merry Christmas," Nightstar greeted.

"Merry Christmas," Lian echoed.

"Been a while, hasn't it, Dick?" Roy remarked.

"Yeah," Richard agreed. "It's good . . . us being here together again."

"You think Garth's gonna show?" Roy asked.

"He will," Richard answered.

True enough; the Atlantean mage arrived with his wife Dolphin and their son Cerdian.

"Whoa!" Roy exclaimed when he saw Cerdian. "You're growing like a weed!"

Cerdian arched one graceful eyebrow at the red-haired man.

"You'll have to forgive Cerdian," Garth remarked. "He's not exactly one for socializing."

Cerdian wasn't paying attention to his father or Roy, as his amethyst gaze had landed on Lian.

"Someone's in love," Dolphin teased gently.

"Fascination and love are not the same, Mother," Cerdian answered. "One can lead to the other, but they are not the same."

"It's still something," Dolphin remarked. "I was scared you'd end up lonely."

Cerdian grunted.

"Cheery guy," Roy commented.

Lorena Marquez, alias Tidal, came through the door a few minutes later. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's ok, Lorena," Garth said. "We're just happy you're here, anyway."

A split second later, multiple blurs raced through the door, stopping to reveal Wally West (the former Flash) holding his wife Linda, Bart Allen (the current Flash) holding his wife Carol, Thaddeus Thawne (Bart's formerly evil "twin") holding his wife Cissie, Max Mercury, Wally and Linda's twin children Iris and Barry, and Thad and Cissie's son Adam.

"Merry Christmas!" Bart declared.

"Merry Christmas, Dad," Mercury greeted, hugging his father and mother.

Carol ruffled Peter's hair affectionately. "Merry Christmas, Petey."

"Mom!" Mercury whined in embarrassment.

Beast Girl giggled.

"Is she your girlfriend, Peter?" Carol asked teasingly.

"Yes," Mercury admitted with a wide grin on his face.

"Aunt Carol, mind letting go of Pete for a minute?" Adam asked. "I have to see if he's improved at all in the art of speed combat."

"Long as you two don't break anything," Carol replied.

Mercury slipped out of his mother's arms and stared down Adam Thawne, alias Velocity. "I'll let you make the first move."

Velocity dashed at Mercury and aimed a quick punch to his face, only for Mercury to block the punch and retaliate with a swift spinning kick. Velocity jumped out of the way of the kick and performed multiple somersaults at super-speed, building up momentum for a fierce kick. Suspecting what his cousin was up to, Mercury ran up a wall and flipped off it, tackling a still-somersaulting Velocity before the older speedster could come down hard on him. The two speedsters traded blows so quickly that they were blurs to anyone observing who wasn't a fellow speedster.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Barbara asked.

"Technically, fighting is never safe," Richard remarked, "but you do have a point."

"Relax," Wally admonished lazily. "They've been rivals since they were kids and neither one's put the other in the hospital yet. Then again, they can just speed-heal any wounds they get from each other."

"Go, Mercury!" Beast Girl cheered, inexplicably dressed in a short blue kimono with white lightning designs and a headband saying in Japanese, "I love Mercury-sama!" Not to mention she was waving around a pair of Japanese fans.

It was this sight that Gar and Tara Logan (formerly Changeling and Terra) and Brion and Gail Markov (alias Geo-Force and Gaia) had the luck to walk in on.

"What's going on?" Tara asked.

"Yes, I would like to know that also," Brion added.

"Terri!" Gail exclaimed.

"Gail!" Beast Girl squealed.

The two earth elementals hugged each other.

"How've you been?" Gail asked.

"I've been all right," Beast Girl replied. "You?"

"League business keeps me busy," Gail answered.

Speaking of League business, Conner Kent and Cassie Sandsmark, alias Superman and Wonder Woman, walked in through the door.

"Hey, Tim," Conner greeted.

"Hi, Kon," Tim greeted back. "Hi, Cassie."

"Merry Christmas," Cassie said.

"Same to you and Kon," Tim answered.

"So why are Peter and Adam fighting?" Conner asked. "I thought they'd give it a rest for Christmas."

Cassie laughed merrily. "It's just them being them."

"I'd kick your butt right now, but I got something better to do," Velocity stated.

"Like what?" Mercury asked.

"Like your present, doof," Velocity replied. He handed him a small box, which Mercury opened to reveal a starter deck for the fantasy card game Swords and Dragons.

"Thanks!" Mercury exclaimed, pulling a box out of his pocket and giving it to Velocity, who opened it to reveal a different starter deck for the same game.

"Funny how we seem to think alike," Velocity remarked. "Merry Christmas, cousin."

"Merry Christmas, cousin," Mercury answered.

Max Mercury just grinned watching the two.

"Hey, I see you got _Tournament of Darkness III,_" Barry remarked. "Mind playing me?"

"You do realize you'll lose like you did in _Tournament of Darkness II,_" Mercury answered.

"I've gotten better," Barry rejoined.

Soon enough, the two speedsters were playing the game, with Beast Girl acting as Mercury's personal cheerleader.

Later that day, Olivia, Avia, and Mallory had arrived, Mallory bringing her parents Karen and Mal Duncan (formerly Bumblebee and Herald) with her. In addition, the rest of the Titans' parents, as well as other former Titans, had arrived.

"Bumblebee!" a familiar voice exclaimed.

"Sparky!" Karen exclaimed, hugging her old friend and onetime boyfriend Victor Stone, alias Cyborg. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, too," Vic answered.

* * *

While the other Titans mingled with their parents and former members, Bladefire slipped out of the Tower through the window, taking the katana with him. He flew to the address Rose had given him, which turned out to be an uptown apartment complex. The red-haired young man entered and walked to the elevator, pressing the "UP" button. Soon enough, the elevator opened up and he entered, pressing the button for the top floor. When the elevator stopped, he exited and walked straight to the door marked with the number 13.

He knocked on the door and waited for someone to answer. The person that answered was none other than Rose, dressed in a white gi and hakama.

"Hi, Blade," she greeted with a soft smile. "Come in."

Bladefire entered and she guided him into the dojo that she'd converted the living room into. "Shall we begin?" she asked, picking up her own sword.

Bladefire drew his katana. "Let's."

Rose struck first, swinging at him quickly. Bladefire raised his sword to block her swing and push back against her. Rose swung her leg out and knocked his feet out from under him. Bladefire nearly fell, only to flip back into a fighting position. He swung at her, but she jumped over his swing and kicked him in the head. Seizing her opportunity, she pinned Bladefire to the ground.

"Merry Christmas, Joh'n," she whispered before kissing him passionately.

Bladefire broke the kiss after a minute and smiled warmly at Rose. "Merry Christmas, Rose."

The sun set on the two lovers as they kissed once again.

* * *

End Notes: This is my first Christmas special and man, was it full of guest stars. However, that can't really be helped due to the fact that the Titans have such a rich history that I'd be loath to not tap it as much as I could.

Garth: Real name of Aqualad, who is Tempest in the current comics.

Dolphin: Garth's wife, looks like a human with webbed hands but considers herself more a sea creature than a human

Cerdian: Garth and Dolphin's son, a baby in present Aquaman canon

Avia: Another Kingdom Come guest star, daughter of Big Barda and Mr. Miracle and close friend of Nightstar in KC continuity

Mallory: Original character

Zatara II: Also a Kingdom Come guest star, although he is only mentioned and not seen, son of Zatanna and John Constantine

Lorena Marquez/Tidal: Newest girl to call herself Aquagirl in the current Aquaman comics, apparently will become a Titan if the "Titans Tomorrow" storyline is any indication

Linda: Wife of Wally West in the present Flash comics

Carol: Onetime love interest of Bart Allen during his days as Impulse

Thaddeus Thawne: Bart Allen's "evil twin" Inertia during Bart's days as Impulse, turns good in the timeline of this story due to inspiration from a DC RPG site called Brave and the Bold

Cissie: Cissie King-Jones, formerly known as the heroine Arrowette

Iris and Barry West: More Kingdom Come guest stars, the former is Kid Flash and the latter is a lazy bastard who doesn't give a crap about the Flash legacy

Adam Thawne: Original character

Brion Markov/Geo-Force: Terra's half brother in the comics

Gail Markov: Original character

Mal Duncan/Herald: Will be appearing in the last three episodes of Teen Titans Season 5

All right, now you know who any characters you probably didn't know are. More notes on the way.

Game HQ is a take on GameStop. _Tournament of Darkness_ is a hybrid of _Mortal Kombat_ and _Dead or Alive._ _Chaos Heart_ is basically a more darkly inclined _Final Fantasy._ Valentine's Treasure is essentially Victoria's Secret.

As you can obviously tell from the concert scene, I borrowed "Deck the Halls," but I also came up with an original Christmas song in the vein of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas." I call it "Christmas Angel (Come On, Santa)."

Ok, that's enough talk out of me. You're free to tell me if you liked or hated this story.

Merry Christmas!


	9. Mentality: Kinetic

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 2: "Mentality"

Chapter 1: "Kinetic"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; they are owned by DC and DC/Marvel respectively. Everyone and everything else is mine.

Author's note: Happy New Year and here we go with a new arc. This time, I'm focusing on my non-Titan-related OC Raziel. Generally, reader reaction to him has been positive, but I've realized that you, my readers, deserve to know more about him. So this arc is going to shed plenty of light on our mysterious psychic. By the time it's over, we and the Titans will know his past . . . and an old enemy will return.

* * *

A young man crouched atop a church, clinging to the large cross in the center as though he were a drowning man. Silver hair hung in haunted purple eyes and bloodied leather sheathed his body. Memories raced through his mind.

_A mask, silver with a black dragon coiled over the mouth._

_Her eyes just before she died._

_Fighting her . . . fighting him . . . them fighting each other and then . . ._

He breathed heavily, the strain showing on his femininely attractive features as he climbed through the window to enter the church. Upon entering, he stumbled and fell. This night and the others before it had taken their toll on him.

As he struggled to his feet, he heard footsteps approaching him. He rolled over to look at the person approaching him.

"Fa . . . Father . . ." he murmured.

The priest picked up a small candle and held it out to the young man, hoping to stimulate him. "Raziel? My God, what have they done to you?"

Raziel didn't answer, his mind drifting back to just how he'd gotten himself into this predicament. . . .

_

* * *

Ten days earlier . . ._

* * *

Raziel and Nightstar sparred in the training room. Nightstar swung her energy whip at him and Raziel moved his head out of the way, losing a few strands of silver hair in the process.

"Getting slow?" Nightstar taunted.

Raziel smirked. "We'll see who's slow." He pulled out three needles from one of the numerous pockets on his pants and threw them at Nightstar, each one flying at her at two thousand feet per second. Nightstar deflected them with her whip and swung it at Raziel again. This time, he threw himself to the side and twisted into a crouching position, skidding on the ground.

Nightstar dissipated her whip and flew at Raziel, who caught her by her wrists. The Titan leader swung her legs up and kicked Raziel in the face, somersaulting as soon as he released her and landing gracefully on the ground.

Raziel shifted into a fighting stance, as did Nightstar. Emerald-on-lime locked on amethyst, each fighter waiting to see who would attack first.

Nightstar made the first move with a fast jab at Raziel's face. Raziel knocked her fist aside and kicked her in the stomach. Nightstar took the kick, wrapping her arms around Raziel's ankle and twisting. Raziel twisted in the same direction as her and his other foot impacted against her head, disorienting her long enough to force her to let go of him.

"Brutal," she remarked.

"When I have to be," he answered.

This time, Raziel went on the attack, striking quickly and fiercely with his fists and feet. Nightstar blocked most of them, but a few managed to slip past her guard. The silver-haired psychic dropped to kick her legs out from under her, but she flew into the air and came down with a kick to the head. Raziel grabbed her ankle and spun her into a throw that sent her flying at a wall. Nightstar righted herself in midair and flew at Raziel like a missile, her head striking his with enough force to shatter a normal human's skull.

"Now who's brutal?" he asked wryly.

Nightstar's answer was a series of machine-gun kicks to Raziel's chest, kicks that were halted by a chop to her ankle. She attempted to kick him with her other foot, only to be blocked by his forearm. The black-haired girl bent double and twisted to elbow him in the stomach. That particular move knocked the breath out of the psychic martial artist and he collapsed, Nightstar twisting so that she landed on top of him.

"Ready to give up?" she hissed into his ear as she twisted his arm behind him.

Raziel bit his lip to stifle the dark thrill he got from feeling her breath so close to his ear. He swung his free arm at Nightstar with the intent of elbowing her in the head. Instead, that arm was pinned as well.

"Do you give up now?" she asked and Raziel could have sworn he felt something wet touch his ear momentarily. Suspecting what that was he directed more of his efforts to keeping himself under control, lest the darker parts of his psyche cut loose and vent his impure cravings on her.

_Let me out, Raziel,_ an edgy, excited voice pleaded. _I can take her. I know I can, if you'll just let me._

_Fine, Michael,_ Raziel answered. _Just don't hurt her too badly._

_I wouldn't,_ Michael answered as he assumed control over Raziel's body. The Zen fighter rolled over, pinning Nightstar on her back and crushing her against him. He twisted in her grip so that he was facing her. "Greetings, Mar'i."

"Michael," Nightstar greeted tersely before swinging her legs up for a double knee-jab. Michael took the blow gracefully and both flipped up into combat positions.

Nightstar shot her hand at his throat and Michael grabbed her wrist, easily stopping her strike. Nightstar aimed a high kick for his face, but he caught that as well. The half-Tamaranean swung her other leg up for another kick, but Michael blocked it with his own leg, balancing himself on his other leg.

"Both of us have only one limb free," Michael observed. "Leaves us at quite a stalemate, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Nightstar agreed. She jabbed at Michael with her free hand, but he moved his head out of the way. Unfortunately, her movement had upset the delicate balance in which their bodies had arranged themselves and they toppled, Michael falling on top of her.

"Give up?" Michael asked with a smirk.

Nightstar didn't answer, but the Zen fighter could hear her heavy breaths, not to mention feel the rise and fall of her chest against his.

A look of soft yearning entered his eyes as he gazed at her.

"Raziel!" a voice sharply cut in, disrupting the possibly romantic moment.

"Yes, Mercury?" Michael asked softly.

"There's someone at the door asking for you," Mercury replied.

Michael got off Nightstar with a start, shifting control of the body back to Raziel. "Is anyone else in the common room?"

"No," Mercury replied.

"Good," Raziel stated. "Keep it that way." He strode out of the training room and to the front door of Titans Tower. "Hello, Ariana."

The girl standing before him was petite, dressed in a miniscule black top that covered only her breasts and a diaphanous black micro-mini-skirt over a pair of tiny shorts. Black shoes covered her feet with black ribbons tied around her slender calves. More black ribbons wrapped around her forearms and a black choker banded around her throat with chains connecting it to her top.

"Hello, Raziel," Ariana greeted. "I wish I could have seen you under better circumstances."

"What do you mean?" Raziel inquired.

"The Brain Trust," Ariana answered. "They want you back with them."

"And what makes them think I'd go back?" Raziel asked.

"That's why they sent me," Ariana replied.

Raziel chuckled bitterly. "Of course. They sent you to entice me into coming back." The chuckle turned darker. "And you are . . . quite fetching in that outfit. But the only way I'm coming back . . . is in a body bag. So run along and tell your masters that."

"Raziel . . ." Ariana uttered sadly.

"Leave," Raziel ordered, turning around and walking away. He heard the door close, indicating that Ariana had chosen to walk away as well, but he didn't care. All that was on his mind was that some things just weren't content to remain in the closet.

He climbed the stairs to the common room and collapsed on the couch.

"Damn them," he muttered. "Damn them all."

* * *

"So who was she?" Samara questioned, looming over him.

"No one," Raziel responded.

"Don't lie to me, Raziel," Samara hissed. "Not when you might as well be naked in front of me."

Raziel snickered. "Flirting with me, are you?"

"You're so full of yourself," Samara grumbled. "Who was she?"

"Just a ghost," Raziel replied. "A ghost that's been haunting me for the past several years."

"Want to . . . talk about it?" Samara asked.

"No," Raziel replied. "I don't. I honestly don't."

"Then find a way to get yourself together or I'll ask Mar'i to keep you off patrol tonight," Samara ordered.

"Meditate with me?" Raziel asked, although it came out more as a plea.

"Sure," Samara replied.

On the rooftop of Titans Tower, Samara and Raziel meditated.

"Azarath Terra Zaratha," they chanted together. "Azarath Terra Zaratha. Azarath Terra Zaratha. Azarath Terra Zaratha . . ."

* * *

That night, Raziel couldn't sleep. The nightmares kept him awake, visions of blood and death that wouldn't leave him in peace.

The silver-haired youth climbed out of his bed and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. Along the way, he heard voices talking in the common room.

_The other Titans?_ he wondered. _What would they be doing up this late?_

_Let's not throw stones, Raziel,_ the voice of Gabriel, his more intellectual side, stated. _Their conversation intrigues me, though._

Raziel walked closer to the common room and flattened himself against the wall.

"He didn't tell you anything?" Nightstar asked.

"For the last time, Mar'i, no," Samara replied.

"All I know is that the girl's name is Ariana and it sounded like she knew him," Beast Girl interjected. "I think she's his girlfriend."

"What makes you think that?" Nightstar asked. "You told me yourself that some organization called the Brain Trust sent her to kill him."

"She could be his ex," Inferno suggested. Raziel could practically hear the wicked grin in his voice. "You jealous?"

After that, Raziel heard nothing more than a pointed silence, indicating that Nightstar had given Inferno the "Bat-glare."

"Learn that from granddaddy?" Mercury quipped.

"Someone was sent to kill Raziel," Nightstar gritted out. "She was able to get past our security. I am not resting until we find out who she is, what this Brain Trust is, and what they want with Raziel."

Raziel sighed and went up to his room. He threw off his cotton sleeping pants and changed into the black shirt and pants he wore as part of his Titan uniform. He slipped on his usual steel-toed black boots and threw on a black leather jacket instead of his usual white haori jacket.

With that done, he went down to the vehicle bay of the Tower and got on his motorcycle. He put on a helmet and started the motorcycle, driving through the underwater tunnel that would take him to the city.

Raziel had no particular destination in mind. He just rode around the city, trying to clear his head.

He returned to the Tower no clearer in mind or purpose than he'd been when he left. He parked his motorcycle in the vehicle bay and returned to his room, throwing off his helmet and jacket and collapsing on the bed.

* * *

Morning greeted him only an hour or so later.

"Hell," the psychic martial artist mumbled and forced himself off the bed. He walked to his radio and turned on the CD player, turning the volume all the way up just to shock himself into awareness. Loud, brutal heavy metal assaulted his ears . . . and the ears of the other Titans.

"You mind turning it down?" Bladefire asked as he entered Raziel's room.

"Sorry," Raziel stated as he turned down the CD player to more tolerable levels.

"Say, what are you doing already dressed?" Bladefire inquired.

"No reason," Raziel answered.

"You might wanna change the shirt," Bladefire said. "We're not supposed to wear our Titans uniforms to school."

"Sure," Raziel answered as he stripped off his shirt and threw on a gray pullover.

At school, Raziel was unable to concentrate on his AP Literature test, which was basically an essay on _The Jungle._ All he could think about was Ariana. The girl who had been his friend in childhood haunted his psyche . . . as she'd done for the past several years since that fateful night.

_Take a number, Raziel,_ Gabriel whispered. _I'll handle this test._

_Sure,_ Raziel muttered and let the most erudite of his multiple personalities take over the test.

That was the way it was until lunch. Raziel brooded in the corner of his mind that was reserved for his own personality while Gabriel handled his classes.

At lunch, Raziel brooded at the lunch table without a single scrap of food before him. He was too tormented to feel hunger . . . or much of anything else except the soul-numbing misery that hung over him like a black cloud that sucked out all his joy and contentment.

"What's wrong?" Nightstar asked, sitting beside him.

"I don't want to talk about it," Raziel replied.

"Why not?" Nightstar inquired.

"Because I don't," Raziel answered.

"You didn't eat any breakfast this morning," Nightstar stated. "You might as well eat some lunch. Can't have you wasting away to just skin and bones."

"I'm not hungry," Raziel deadpanned.

Nightstar lowered her tone and asked, "What is this Brain Trust?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with, Mar'i," Raziel responded.

"When they come after a teammate and friend, you bet your ass I'm concerned," Nightstar hissed. "What aren't you telling me?"

"It's nothing!" Raziel suddenly exploded, taking Nightstar aback. He breathed heavily, trying to calm himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . I'd better go." He stood up and walked away from the lunch table.

* * *

The silver-haired young man ended up outside the school building. He walked out to the soccer field and began practicing his katas. As he practiced, he felt someone come up behind him. He spun around and kicked the person, only for that person to jump into the air to avoid the kick. He came down with a kick that nearly dislocated Raziel's jaw.

"I want to know why you shouted at my sister," he stated.

"Joh'n," Raziel spoke. "I didn't intend to do that."

"She's worried sick about you, Raziel," Bladefire said. "We all are. And you losing your cool with her proves that we have good reason to be."

"I told her and I'll tell you: It's nothing," Raziel stated.

"She got past Titans Tower security just to tell you that some organization called the Brain Trust sent her to either recapture or kill you," Bladefire insisted. "Next time, she might just kill you in your sleep. That's not what I'd call nothing. Now what aren't you telling us?"

"There are things I can't tell you," Raziel answered.

"Why not?" Bladefire asked.

"Because I can't," Raziel replied, walking away from the school.

* * *

In his room, Raziel heard knocking on the door as New Age music played on his radio. "Come in."

The door opened and Inferno entered. "You know, it's not nice to walk out of school midway through. Do you know how much agony the six of us had to suffer at Alderman's hands?"

"What did she do to you?" Raziel asked.

"Oh, not much," Inferno replied sarcastically. "Just subjected us to a tirade about how irresponsible we are and how we think we're above the rules. Honestly, you might want to be more discreet about ditching school."

"Sorry about that," Raziel muttered.

"This thing with that girl has got you stressed out bad, hasn't it?" Inferno mused.

"Ding-ding-freaking-ding!" Raziel exclaimed in the more gravelly and sinister tones of Memnoch. "Johnny, tell our contestant what he's won!"

Inferno grabbed Memnoch by his shoulders. "This is serious! Quit screwing around!"

Memnoch roughly slapped Inferno's hands off his shoulders, a dangerous look growing in his increasingly reddish purple eyes. "Don't. Touch. Me."

"You can't keep putting barriers between us and you, Raziel," Inferno stated. "You can tell us now or you can leave us to figure it out later."

"Yeah, yeah," Memnoch grumbled. "Now get the hell out of my room before I see fit to cut your head off."

"If that's the way you want it," Inferno answered as he stepped out of the room.

A few hours, he heard a soft knock on the door. "Raziel?" a soft, almost timid feminine voice asked.

"Terri," Raziel murmured. "Come in."

The door slid in and Beast Girl entered. "It's time for dinner. You hungry?"

"Not really," Raziel replied.

"We miss you," Beast Girl whispered. "Mar'i misses you."

"Why doesn't she come up here and tell me that herself?" Raziel inquired.

"Come on, Razzy," Beast Girl pleaded.

"No," he murmured. "Don't even try it."

To his dismay, Beast Girl turned large, pleading kitty eyes on him. Raziel stared into those shining golden orbs and melted.

"Fine," he relented. "I'll come down."

* * *

"You really ought to run for class president, Jeremiah," Mercury said. "You'd be pretty good."

"I'd be more convinced of your faith in me if you weren't talking and eating at the same time," Inferno droned.

Mercury finished his meal.

"You're a pig, you know that?" Beast Girl remarked.

Mercury just smirked. "Oink, oink."

"So what makes you think I'd make a good class president?" Inferno asked.

"You're the school's resident crusader for social justice," Mercury answered. "You'd actually redeem the office of class president since you'd be doing stuff to really improve the school instead of just pandering to the rich kids." He looked at Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, and Samara. "No offense to you guys."

"None taken," Samara replied.

Mercury dashed away from the dinner table and came back with a chart of the present candidates.

"Here you go," he said. He pointed to a bleached blond that looked almost exactly like a living Barbie doll. "Sandy Drew. Not much to her except her looks. Problem? She's got cash. Hella lot of it. She's also a cheerleader and is not adverse to bribing potential voters."

"So a dumb, corrupt bimbo," Samara interjected with a sneer.

"Hey, dumb, corrupt bimbos get elected to public office all the time," Beast Girl added. "They just gotta have at least 20 mil to blow on campaigning."

"'Blow'?" Mercury repeated with a disturbed expression on his face.

"You have a sick mind, Peter Maxwell Allen," Beast Girl stated.

Mercury whistled innocently and pointed to a mousy redhead, who was next on the chart. "Deirdre O'Hara. Intelligent, dedicated, passionate. Basically a female version of you, Jeremiah. She'll be a challenge. Plus, she makes me feel guilty about being male."

"How does she make you feel guilty about being male?" Nightstar asked.

"She's a hardcore feminist," Mercury replied. "For as long as I've known her, she's been going on tangents about how girls can't get a full education because traditional 'patriarchal' values keep them from speaking up in class."

"It's not just school," Nightstar added. "It's society as a whole. Men are scared to death of strong, professional women who know what they want. Not so easy to control. Why do you think superheroine rape fantasies are so popular in the seedier parts of cyberspace?"

Everyone except Raziel and Bladefire gave Nightstar very disturbed looks.

"Joh'n and I were working on a case a year and a half ago about someone assaulting young women who were superheroines for Halloween," Nightstar explained. "One of our big leads was that the sick asshole frequented web sites catering to people who liked the idea of forcing themselves on a female hero." She shuddered. "Not one of my favorite memories."

"Can we change the subject before one of us throws up his or her dinner?" Beast Girl asked.

"Sure," Nightstar replied.

"Third candidate's Miguel Lago," Mercury finished, pointing to a picture of a Hispanic boy in small glasses.

"He's kinda cute," Samara admitted with a faint blush. "In that professional sort of way."

"Not only is he cute, he's also pretty popular with the intellectual crowd," Mercury added. "He's also very heavily involved in school politics. He was part of the student council until he got into a disagreement with the leadership over the council's future direction. He's got credibility in spades."

"So I've got one opponent who might win just because she's a rich, popular bimbo and two opponents who have a good chance of winning because they actually have brains," Inferno summarized.

"In a nutshell," Mercury confirmed. "But you got plenty of brains in there, too! And credibility? That practically goes without saying! You got a school newsletter and you're a protector of the city, nay, the world!"

"I'm also a metahuman," Inferno cut in. "And student opinion on metas is pretty divided. There's a considerable percentage who think that none of us should have been allowed to attend school with normal humans at all. That could work against me."

"You do realize that part of the reason people hate metahumans, particularly superheroes, in their schools is that they regard us as aloof," Bladefire stated. "If you run for school office, they might change their minds on that."

"All right," Inferno replied. "I'll think about it."

"If you decide to go for it, feel free to enlist us as your campaign managers and speechwriters," Mercury offered.

Throughout the entire exchange, Raziel had silently eaten and observed.

"You have anything to say, Raziel?" Nightstar asked.

"Heavy lies the head that wears the crown," Raziel replied. He stood up from the table and walked away.

"What's with him?" he heard Mercury ask.

"I don't know," he heard Bladefire reply.

Not heeding his fellow Titans' voices, Raziel went down to the vehicle bay and took his motorcycle for a ride. This time, he had a destination in mind.

* * *

The silver-haired young man found himself parked in front of a cathedral. He took off his helmet and placed it in its compartment before entering. Once inside, he walked into the confession booth.

"Hello, Father Matthew," he whispered, knowing who was on the other end of the barrier separating them.

"Hello, Raziel," Father Matthew greeted back. "What troubles you?"

"You know, Father, that my past . . . is not anything I would like to confess to the other Titans," Raziel answered.

"And you fear it has come back to haunt you," Father Matthew deduced.

"Yes," Raziel confessed. "Why now, though, when I have begun to create something better than what I had before? Before, I was –"

"That doesn't matter," Father Matthew interrupted. "What you were before has nothing to do with what you are now. But if you are to truly move on from that, you must not keep it a secret from your friends."

Raziel sighed. "Easier said than done. How do I tell them that once I was no better than the same kind of scum we fight on a nightly basis?"

"The Titans seem like understanding and kindhearted people. After all, they took you in without knowing anything about your past." The priest paused. "Is it Nightstar you're worried about?"

"Yes."

"You have feelings for her, don't you?"

Raziel didn't answer that at all. He didn't need to.

"A relationship cannot last if its foundation is secrets."

"Perhaps not." The psychic crossed himself as Father Matthew recited the prayer for his soul. He stood up and departed from the confession booth, no more at peace than he had been when he entered it.

Upon exiting the church, Raziel "saw" a kunai flying at the back of his head. He whirled around and caught it by the blade. Looking up, he spotted a shadowed figure glaring at him from the church rooftop, crouched on the cross.

"You?"

"Crestmore. Long time no see."

* * *

End Notes: If you're the kind of person who doesn't like cliffhangers, you won't like this ending. Don't worry, the arc doesn't end here; it's only the first chapter.

I'm putting Raziel through hell, aren't I? Again, you don't need to worry. There's a light at the end of the tunnel for him.

Feel free to read and review.


	10. Mentality: Dichotomies

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 2: "Mentality"

Chapter 2: "Dichotomies"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, either; Nightstar is owned by DC and Mercury is jointly owned by DC and Marvel Comics.

Author's note: Down the spiral he goes. Further down the spiral he goes, "he" being Raziel. Let's just say for the time being that a lot of unpleasant stuff is gonna go down.

* * *

Raziel peered into the shadows to behold his attacker, who leaped down from the rooftop of the church and landed in front of him.

The assailant wore a form-fitting yet loose black suit with an Asian-style collar. Leather guards that ended in rings around his middle fingers covered his wrists, as did metal bands with rubies embedded in their centers. Leather guards covered his shins and the hilt of a katana could be seen protruding from his back. A silver mask with black slits for his eyes and a black dragon coiled beneath those slits covered his face.

"Wyndragyn," Raziel snarled.

The assassin drew a katana and shifted into a battle-ready stance.

Raziel reached into one of the many pockets on his pants and pulled out three _senbon_ needles, holding them between his fingers. He propelled them at Wyndragyn, who deflected them with his katana.

"Good reflexes," Raziel remarked.

Wyndragyn didn't answer, simply lunging at Raziel with his katana. Raziel barely sidestepped the charge and swung down his psychic blade to slice the katana apart. Shockingly enough, Wyndragyn simply moved his katana to his left hand and twisted out of the way.

"Pathetic, Crestmore," Wyndragyn remarked. "I expected more from the Kokuryu no Kiba."

"That is no longer my name," Raziel stated as he slashed at Wyndragyn again. The masked assailant simply weaved out of the way of Raziel's attack and swung his katana at him. Raziel flipped out of the way of the swing and threw more _senbon_ needles at point blank range. Just as before, Wyndragyn blocked the needles with his katana.

Wyndragyn slashed at Raziel again and this time cut him across the chest. The wound bled slightly, only to stop mere seconds later.

Raziel rushed Wyndragyn and swung at him. This time, Wyndragyn caught him by the wrist and twisted brutally, fracturing it. Raziel gritted his teeth, refusing to give the assailant the satisfaction of hearing him cry out. Instead, he dropped and kicked his legs out from under him. Wyndragyn landed on his free hand and flipped into a standing position.

Raziel took his wrist and twisted it back into place despite the pain of doing so. It was still fractured, but it would have a better chance of healing properly.

Wyndragyn sheathed his katana and kicked Raziel's legs out from under him. Raziel landed on his hands, which sent a flare of pain up the arm of his injured wrist. Ignoring that pain, he flipped into a standing position and kicked Wyndragyn, who blocked the kick with his wrist. Raziel flipped back and Wyndragyn kicked him right where he'd cut him earlier.

Raziel thrust his psychic blade at Wyndragyn, only for the attack to be parried by the masked assailant. Wyndragyn lunged at Raziel again, knocking the psychic onto the steps of the church. The masked assailant proceeded to bash Raziel's head into the steps as he performed a cartwheel over him.

"Look at you, Kokuryu no Kiba," he sneered. "Life with the Titans make you soft?"

Raziel rose to his feet and removed several marbles from one of his pockets, proceeding to shoot them at Wyndragyn, who dodged them all with ridiculous ease.

"What do you want?" Raziel asked.

"What do I want?" Wyndragyn asked. "It's just a matter of business. My employer wants you dead."

Raziel slashed at him again with his psychic blade, only for Wyndragyn to block the attack.

"Give it up, Crestmore," the assassin sneered. "You're no match for me."

"Wanna bet?" Raziel growled as his knee shot up to brutally impact against Wyndragyn's stomach. Seizing his opportunity, he chopped the masked assassin in the spine, causing him to fall facedown on the church steps.

"Not bad, Crestmore," Wyndragyn remarked as he got up. When Raziel looked at him, he saw a jagged diagonal crack in his mask. "I'll see you again . . . very soon." He threw down a smoke bomb, the explosion obscuring Raziel's vision. The psychic raced into the smoke, only to find nothing when he exited the cloud.

Raziel sighed and walked away from the church, getting on his motorcycle and driving back to Titans Tower.

* * *

"So what happened?" Bladefire asked.

"I have no idea why you're asking," Raziel replied.

"Your wrist is bruised, probably fractured, and your shirt has a tear in it," Bladefire observed.

"I got into an accident," Raziel explained. "No big deal. I heal fast."

"Actually, you look more like you were in a fight," Bladefire noted.

"So I was busting up a few criminals and it happened to be a little rougher than I'd anticipated," Raziel stated. "Again, no big deal."

"You'd better go see Samara about that wrist," Bladefire advised. "You may heal fast, but that doesn't mean you heal properly."

"Fine," Raziel yielded and rose from his couch to see Samara.

* * *

"Well, it's not as bad as it looks," Samara remarked as she gripped his wrist gently. A purplish aura engulfed her hand and passed into his wrist, setting the bone and healing the fracture. "Good as new. Just don't get into any more fights with street thugs."

"Thanks," Raziel said. "I'll note that advice." He looked at Samara. "Samara? Do you think I'm a good person?"

"What brought that question up?" Samara inquired.

"Just answer . . . please," Raziel pleaded softly.

"I don't know you very well," Samara admitted. "But from what I've seen, I think you're a decent person."

"Thanks," Raziel said and rose to leave Samara's room.

* * *

At lunch the next day, Mercury was hard at work crafting Inferno's class presidency campaign.

"So here's what we do. The school newsletter's a pretty good angle to work with. We can show that you're really concerned with getting unadulterated information out to your peers. We could also emphasize your record as a Titan. You save lives on a daily basis, man. That'll be pretty hard for anyone to compete with."

"Hmm. Good points."

"Who's gonna write the speeches?"

"I'll handle the speechwriting, Terri. I am a master of the English language."

"That's how you barely passed English."

"Not my fault the class was boring."

"_I'll_ write my own speeches, but thanks, anyway."

"Can I at least edit them? Y'know, for time and content and all that stuff?"

"Sure. What else?"

"What else? We also emphasize how you intend to improve the school. More funding for the arts and such."

"Oh, yeah . . . like 'for too long the office of class president has been used to pander to the interests of so-called elites within the student body to the detriment of the common student' and such.'"

"Uh-huh."

"You've practically won already, Fern. All we gotta do is make it official."

A pointed glare directed itself at the fast-talking teen. "Don't call me Fern."

"Sorry." The younger boy held his hands up in surrender. "Won't do it again."

"I think what you really ought to emphasize is your sheer integrity."

"Integrity?"

"Yes. Name any instance you recanted on something you published in your newsletter not because you were wrong but because you were intimidated or bribed into doing so."

"Can't name any."

"Exactly, Jeremiah. You're incorruptible. That's what's going to give you your edge in this campaign."

"I'm kinda flattered, Samara."

"Don't be. I'm only telling you the truth."

"All right, I think I got enough material for five speeches at least!" The pencil moved so quickly as guided by the speedster's hand that it was a blur. When he was finished, he handed the pages to Inferno for review. "What do you think?"

"Not bad," Inferno remarked, "although it could use some editing."

As all this was going on, Nightstar and Bladefire were eating their lunches. Raziel was doing his best to eat, but more for the sake of projecting a façade of normality than any actual desire to eat.

The silver-haired young man reflected on the fight between him and Wyndragyn. Judging from the symbol his assailant bore on his mask, he was a member of the Kokuryu yakuza syndicate.

Raziel repressed a shudder. Thinking of the Kokuryu brought back bad memories for him.

He became aware of Samara's pointed gaze as a tendril of dark power subtly attached itself to his brain stem through his skin. The tendril's intrusion was somewhat painful, but Raziel was used to pain. It didn't bother him much.

_What's wrong?_ he heard her silently ask him.

_Nothing,_ Raziel replied.

_Bull,_ Samara stated. _I know well enough when someone's hiding things from me. Does it have anything to do with what happened to make Bladefire send you to me for healing?_

_Yes, but I can't tell you,_ Raziel answered.

_Why the hell not?_ Samara inquired.

_There are things about me you shouldn't know,_ Raziel responded. _Things that no one should ever know._

_Quit the mystery boy routine and tell me, or I swear to God I will leave you nothing but a vegetable,_ Samara threatened.

_You wouldn't do such a thing,_ Raziel stated calmly and a soft smile came to his lips.

_Don't try to call my bluff, Raziel,_ Samara stated. _I mean it. I'll rip as big a hole as I need in your defenses to find out and if you do become a vegetable, it'll be your own fault for trying to hide from us._

_My defenses are stronger than you think, Samara,_ Raziel challenged.

Suddenly, the tendril pulsed inside him and Raziel felt Samara pushing through his defenses. He gritted his teeth and dug his heels in, refusing to give even an inch to her. This just made Samara push harder, but the walls that guarded his secrets thickened.

_Damn it, Raziel,_ he heard her think. _Why are you trying so hard to shut me out?_

_Forgive me for not liking the idea of someone poking into my mind without my consent!_ Raziel retorted.

_Try a brain-hack on her,_ Gabriel suggested. _If that tendril connects her to you, then the connection might work both ways._

_Good idea,_ Raziel answered.

Suddenly, Samara could feel Raziel worming his way into her mind, slithering past her defenses. The part-demon psychic summoned her defenses as well and now they were straining against each other, each trying to force their way into the other's mind.

As they fought, images began to rise unbidden. Images of a school, of lessons, of a man hidden in foreboding shadow, and of a black dragon.

Finally, Samara separated from him, fearing the possibility of being overwhelmed by the intensity of the images she had seen.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Raziel stood up and walked away. However, Samara caught his last words.

"That is a question I often ask myself."

* * *

Once again, Raziel was in the soccer field practicing his katas.

"Hey," Nightstar greeted. "Want someone to spar with?"

"What I want, Mar'i, is to be left alone," Raziel answered.

"Too bad," Nightstar shot back. "We have a right to know what's going on with you."

"Is that why Samara tried to force her way into my mind?" Raziel inquired with a pointed gaze.

"Not condoning it, but what choice did she have when you wouldn't be honest with her?" Nightstar questioned.

"There are things I can't tell you," Raziel responded.

"Why not?" Nightstar asked, reaching out to gently stroke his face. "I want to help you, Raziel. I truly do, but how am I supposed to help when you won't tell me what's wrong?"

Raziel stroked her hand. "Mar'i . . ." he whispered, his voice suddenly low and velvety. "You want to help me?" He looked into her eyes and she froze on the spot like a deer in headlights. His eyes smoldered with want and shadowy ardor.

"Yes . . . I do . . ." Nightstar whispered, the look in his eyes virtually hypnotizing her. She leaned closer to him, her eyes closing, her lips parting.

Raziel watched in silent horror as the persona that had taken over his body leaned in for the kill . . . or rather, the kiss.

"Mr. Crestmore, Miss Grayson, engage in your tryst somewhere other than school grounds," a sharp, strident voice spoke, breaking the spell of seduction that this alternate personality had woven.

Raziel retook control and he and Nightstar looked upon the disapproving expression on Mrs. Stowe's face.

"Mrs. Stowe . . ." Nightstar spoke.

"I understand that you're young and that the hormones are flying, but try to contain yourselves until after you get home from school," Mrs. Stowe advised. "In the meantime, lunch is over, so you two had better get to your classes."

"Yes, Mrs. Stowe," Raziel spoke.

* * *

After school, Raziel sat in his room pondering what had happened between him and Nightstar as the relentless sound of heavy metal ricocheted all around the room.

_What did you do that for, Samael?_ he questioned silently.

_I only did what you wouldn't,_ the other persona replied, his voice a velvety purr of seduction. _Silly boy, can't you feel her want for you? Every inch of that delectable body of hers just screamed, "Take me." So why shouldn't you?_

_There are reasons I can't be involved with her,_ Raziel stated. _You're a big part of that._

_It seems that being with the Titans has given you a moral streak,_ Samael commented. _You used to have no problem taking what you wanted._

_That was then, this is now,_ Raziel responded.

_If you don't do something, I will,_ Samael asserted. _Oh, don't give me that look, Raziel. I'm no rapist. By the time I'm through, she'll want me too much to think coherently._

Raziel let out a hissing sigh. _I see why I gave you the name Samael. You truly are the devil._

_Yes, but I'm a devil you created,_ Samael answered coolly. _So that makes you responsible for every sin I commit._

He heard a knock on the door. "Yo, Raziel! Open up!"

"Come in, Peter!" he shouted.

The door slid open and Mercury stepped in. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Raziel answered.

"Don't B.S. me, Raziel," Mercury stated, amber eyes burning into Raziel's violet orbs. "Something's wrong with you, has been wrong, and it all started showing itself when that girl showed up at our door. Now who is she, how does she know you, and why did she come looking for you?"

"I can't tell you that," Raziel answered.

"Why not?" Mercury asked. He suddenly perked up. "Holy crap, I love this song!"

The silver-haired young man just marveled internally at his younger friend's tendency to get distracted by "shiny objects."

"I had a dream set to this song once," Mercury remarked. "In it, I was fighting a blind samurai and the guy was kicking my ass."

"Like _Zatoichi?_" Raziel presumed.

"Yeah, like that!" Mercury confirmed. He growled. "Don't change the subject! You didn't answer my question!"

"It's your fault for getting distracted," Raziel answered.

Mercury grunted. "Well, if you won't talk to me, you can at least help me with my chem. Project."

"Sure," Raziel conceded.

About an hour later, Mercury had figured out how _not_ to make any kind of explosive substance.

"So what do you like about chem.?" Raziel asked.

"Terri's in it," Mercury replied. "That's all."

"You really love her, don't you?" Raziel mused.

"Yeah, I suppose you could say that," Mercury admitted shyly.

"Why don't you tell her?" Raziel inquired.

"I don't know," Mercury replied. "She's the first girl I ever loved like that and . . . hell, I suppose I'm scared. Like you."

"What do you mean, like me?" Raziel questioned.

"The sexual tension between you and Mar'i has been blatantly obvious since you became part of this team," Mercury observed. "Yet neither of you will make a move."

"I can't be with her in that way," Raziel murmured.

"Why not?" Mercury asked. "Does it have anything to do with whatever it is you're trying to hide from us?"

Raziel didn't answer.

* * *

That night, Raziel sneaked out of Titans Tower. Instead of wearing his usual Titans attire, he wore a leather jacket over a black Chinese shirt and black leather pants with his usual steel-toed boots. His jacket's pockets were filled with needles, darts, marbles, dice . . . and bullets. He wore his hair in a samurai's ponytail.

He slipped on his motorcycle helmet and straddled his motorcycle, starting it and driving away from Titans Tower for what he felt would be the last time. For what he was going to do, the other Titans would never allow him back with them.

Disregarding traffic rules, he ran red lights and drove at the motorcycle's maximum speed of 200 mph. Finally, he stopped at what looked like a school building. He knew better what lay in the depths of that so-called school.

This was where the Brain Trust operated. The school was just a front.

Raziel got off his motorcycle and removed his helmet, placing it in the helmet compartment. He closed his eyes, slipping into the coldly logical persona of Uriel.

Soon enough, Ariana exited the school, approaching him. "Raziel . . . I wish things didn't have to be like this."

"Things are the way they are for a reason," Uriel answered coldly. "You chose your path. No turning back now." He reached into one of his jacket pockets and removed four marbles.

An aura of heat emanated from Ariana and she pushed it outward, toward Uriel, who flicked the marbles at her with deadly speed and accuracy. Unfortunately, Ariana's heat wave melted the marbles before they struck her. Uriel charged at Ariana, relying on his aura to protect him from the heat. He thrust his hand onto her chest, a burst of locomotive force knocking her back.

Ariana got up and concentrated, clusters of air molecules exploding all around Uriel, who drew six needles – three in each hand – and propelled them all at her. Ariana melted them with her heat aura, but Uriel threw more and varied weapons at her and some of them managed to survive long enough to strike her.

The Brain Trust assassin now bled profusely from her shoulder, abdomen, and leg.

"You . . . didn't kill me," Ariana uttered.

"Not yet," Uriel contradicted. He rushed Ariana, ready to impale her heart with his psychic blade. She managed to grab his wrist and began infusing it with her heat aura. Uriel ignored the pain and kicked her in her injured leg, causing her to let go of him and thus allowing his own aura to begin its healing work.

Ariana swept out her uninjured leg to trip him, but he jumped over it and stomp-kicked her directly in her wounded abdomen. Despite the pain, she grabbed his ankle and pushed him off her. She struggled to her feet as she continued to bleed.

"You _are_ aware you're going to die," Uriel stated coldly.

Ariana simply set off more explosions around Uriel, knocking him around a bit. The emotionless persona recovered quickly and charged for the kill, intending to slit her throat with his psychic blades. Ariana closed her eyes, preparing for her death.

Suddenly, Uriel stopped.

_You can't do this!_ Gabrielle cried out internally. _You can't!_

_Watch me, wench,_ Uriel answered and brought his psychic blade down, only for it to be stopped by another psychic blade.

"Greetings . . . son," a familiar and much-loathed voice stated.

Uriel looked up and into the face of a man that could have been an older version of him. Same silver hair, same purple eyes, same cold expression.

"You," he hissed.

"Yes," the man confirmed before slashing Uriel with his psychic blade, which was more akin to a sword. The black Chinese shirt he wore turned even darker with his blood, but he ignored it and struck back at his attacker, only for the attack to be effortlessly parried. The man proceeded to dislocate Uriel's shoulder with one punch.

_I won't die here,_ Uriel whispered internally and propelled the bullets at the man, who simply stopped them in midair and shot them back at him at the same speed at which they'd been propelled. Uriel put his aura-enhanced reflexes to work dodging the bullets, although he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid all of them. The one bullet that made its mark did so in his knee, effectively crippling him.

"Helpless. Weak," the man spoke as he looked upon the fallen Uriel. "You are unworthy." He raised the psychic sword. "Goodbye."

* * *

End Notes: Considerably shorter than my usual chapters, but I don't have as much enthusiasm for this particular arc as I did for the first or for the arcs that I will write in the future. Then again, I can probably attribute that to the fact that I'm trying too hard to stretch it out. I can't say it would have been better as a one-shot, as there is too much material to fit it all into a one-shot.

Yeah, nasty cliffhanger I have here. Raziel/Uriel is at the mercy of a man claiming to be his father. Will he live? Well, duh. It's not like I'm going to kill off any of the Titans. It's how he's going to live that you're all probably waiting to find out.

Translation: Kokuryu no Kiba – Fang of the Black Dragon


	11. Mentality: Genesis

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 2: "Mentality"

Chapter 3: "Genesis"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. It belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, either; the former belongs to DC and the latter is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everything else is mine for the most part.

Author's note: As hinted by the title, somebody's beginnings are going to be explained in this story. It'll be a long flashback, or at least that's what I'm aiming for. First, I have to resolve the cliffhanger that I left you with in the last chapter.

* * *

The man gazed down at Uriel and brought down his psychic sword. The blade of psionic energy never made its mark . . .

. . . because a blur of blue and white had rushed Uriel out of the way of the psi-blade.

"A speedster," the man murmured. "Interesting."

* * *

"What do you think you're doing?" Uriel asked.

"Saving your ungrateful, soulless ass," Mercury replied. "Now come on. Mar'i's gonna be pissed."

"Let her be," Uriel stated.

* * *

Meanwhile, the man picked up Ariana's bleeding body and walked back into the school building. He walked down to the subbasement of the school and pressed the down button for the elevator. The elevator opened mere seconds after and he stepped inside, pressing a hidden floor button. The elevator descended two more floors before stopping.

The man stepped out and walked into the medical ward of the subbasement floor, placing Ariana onto a cot.

"Commander Azazel!" a white-coated woman exclaimed.

"See to her," Azazel ordered. "Now."

* * *

Raziel lay on a cot in the infirmary of Titans Tower. Samara had healed him to the best of her abilities and his aura was taking care of the rest.

"So . . . what were you thinking?" Nightstar asked.

"Not now, Mar'i," Raziel sighed.

"Yes, now," Nightstar insisted. "And I'm going to keep asking until I get a straight answer from you. This isn't like before when you came back with a busted wrist. This time, you were quite nearly dead! Now _what were you thinking?_"

Raziel chuckled ironically. "So you do care."

"Of course I care, you damned idiot!" Nightstar yelled. At that moment, she surprised Raziel by hugging him tightly.

"Are we interrupting something?" a dry voice inquired.

Nightstar released Raziel from her embrace and stood up as the other Titans entered the infirmary.

"The food good?" Beast Girl quipped.

"Not hungry," Raziel answered. "Exhausted mostly."

"So you mind telling us how you got so banged up?" Inferno asked.

"I suppose I'll have to tell you now," Raziel conceded. "Very well. It's not easy for me to tell you this. What you hear may make you hate me . . . or at the very least, think less of me."

"Quit being melodramatic and tell us already," Mercury groused.

_

* * *

I started life as all beings do: innocent, naïve, and blissfully oblivious to the darker truths of life._

_My mother was a woman named Marian, who I considered to have the face, voice, and disposition of an angel. My father was Christian Crestmore._

* * *

"Wait, Crestmore?" Bladefire repeated. "As in Crestmore Industries?"

"Yes, but I'll explain that if you let me continue instead of interrupting me," Raziel answered.

"Sorry," Bladefire said.

"Now," Raziel said, "as I was saying . . ."

_

* * *

My father was Christian Crestmore. He was the second child of Kenneth Crestmore, who was the owner of Crestmore Industries before my uncle Anthony took over._

_My father and grandfather never got along. Hell, I never actually knew my grandfather that well; he'd made a point of not being a presence in my life. As far as he was concerned, my father was a disgrace to the family and any children he had would be as much of a disgrace as him. His words._

_I didn't know of any of this at the time and I couldn't care to find out. I had just started junior high and I was on top of the world._

_Soon enough, my perfectly crafted world began to unravel somewhat. It started one day when I happened upon one of my teachers, Ms. Freeman. She seemed flushed and her clothes were almost out of place. Suddenly, information was surging into my brain. I struggled to make sense of it and when I did . . . it was safe to say that I saw some strange things._

"_Ms. Freeman?" I asked._

"_Yes, Raziel?"_ _Ms. Freeman prompted._

"_Why were you and Mr. Johnson exercising in the janitor's closet?" I inquired._

"_Uh . . . I don't know what you're talking about," Ms. Freeman replied, the flush on her face deepening slightly._

"_Your face is red, your clothes look a bit rumpled, and you're breathing heavily," I continued. "That's what happens when you exercise, right?"_

_Granted, I was aware of what sex was; my parents had taken the time to explain the basics to me. However, I had never seen the act itself before and so the images I saw confused me._

"_Was it fun?"_

"_Young man, you shouldn't spy on other people," Ms. Freeman admonished before walking away, her embarrassment evident._

_

* * *

That was only the beginning. At the dinner table that night, I asked my father one simple question._

"_Why don't you and Grandpa talk to each other?"_

_This question caught my parents by surprise. "I'm not quite in the mood to answer that, son," my father answered._

"_Does it have to do with Mom?" I asked. "Is that why Grandpa is angry with you?"_

"_That's enough, Raziel," my mother stated softly._

"_Sorry I asked," I grumbled._

_

* * *

After dinner, I was washing the dishes when my father came up to me._

"_How did you know about your grandfather and me?" he asked._

"_I don't know," I replied. "I just . . . see things. Stuff people hide. Stuff people don't like talking about."_

_My father paused and I could sense, even then, that he was silently gauging how much he should tell a "delicate" twelve-year-old like myself._

"_Your grandfather didn't want me to marry your mother," my father finally admitted. "He thought she was no good for me, that she would just bring me down. He was wrong, couldn't see how wonderful she really was. We got into a big fight over it and I walked out and never looked back."_

"_That's sad," I said. "That's why Grandpa won't talk to you, why he doesn't send me cards and stuff like Mom's dad does?"_

"_Yeah," my father confessed._

"_S'ok," I uttered. "If he's gonna be a jerk, then I don't want anything to do with him."_

_

* * *

By the next week, I had found out enough dirty secrets about the people around me to wrap them all around my fingers. Being the generally good-hearted boy that I was, I never thought to do such a thing. To me, it was more fun to hoard all this knowledge._

"_People are hypocrites," I declared at the dinner table._

"_You mean they're hippos?" my seven-year-old sister Aimee asked._

"_No, they're hypocrites," I explained. "It means they say one thing but they do the opposite."_

"_What makes you say that?" my mother inquired._

"_Lots of things," I replied simply._

"_Like what?" my father questioned._

"_Adults tell you not to hit people," I expounded, "but then my teacher goes and beats up his wife for no good reason."_

"_How do you know he beats up his wife?" my mother asked._

"_He got arrested for it," I answered._

"_You're getting a tad cynical," my father commented._

"_What's cynical?" I asked._

"_It means you don't trust anyone and you see only the worst in people," my father explained._

"_Good is what everyone wants to see, so that's what everyone tries to be on the outside," I stated. "On the inside, they're like sour grapes."_

"_Sour grapes taste yucky," Aimee commented._

_

* * *

The next day, I was playing dodgeball in gym class. To my surprise, I wasn't getting hit at all. I thought I was just lucky, but it turned out that I was dodging so quickly that the balls were missing me by a wide margin._

_Eventually, I got sick of dodging and went on the offensive. I picked up a ball and I threw it as hard as I could at the nearest kid, who crumpled onto the ground, groaning in pain._

_The instructor ran to him and rolled him over._

"_Ahhh!_ _It hurts!" he exclaimed._

_The instructor muttered something under his breath and pulled out his cell phone. "Hello? This is Jamal Walters and I need an ambulance right now. I have a boy, Jason McCormick, age 12. I think his ribs have been cracked or broken."_

_All the while, I was looking on in shock, not wanting to believe what I had just done._

_

* * *

That was when things really began to unravel for me. From then on, I heard the word "freak" whispered whenever I walked down the hallway. All the friends I had managed to make – and they were not many – abandoned me. I was as miserable as a twelve-year-old boy could get._

_I came home one day from school and I found my parents talking to a guy who was dressed rather nicely, suit and tie and all that. I heard things about a special school for "the gifted."_

_I waited until the man had left and I confronted my parents._

"_Gifted? That what he called me?" I asked sarcastically._

"_What's wrong with being gifted?" my mother asked. "It certainly explains some things. And here I thought you just had really good intuition."_

"_I'll tell you what's wrong," I replied. "I nearly broke a kid's ribs just by throwing an inflatable ball at him. How's that gifted?"_

"_The man who came in told us it was a mind thing," my father spoke up. "Like, you can use your brain to do things that most people can't do."_

"_So you gonna send me there?" I asked. "To that school for weirdoes who do stuff with their brains?"_

"_Not if you don't want to go," my mother responded. "He said he'd give us a week to think about it."_

_

* * *

By the time the week was up, I had already made up my mind. I had no reason to stay in a school where no one liked me._

_I found myself at the Institute for the Talented on the following Monday. To my irritation, I had to wear a uniform. To my dismay, I had to live away from my parents and I wasn't allowed any further contact with them until I had full control over my talents._

_We had the standard classes that any school would have: math, science, English, gym, and so on. Once the standard school period was over, our studies turned to those of our abilities. I learned that my body was surrounded by an aura of psychic energy that I could manipulate for various purposes, although I had yet to fully master it at the time._

_Unlike the last school I was in, they didn't hate me for having my abilities. To the contrary, they wanted to help me learn more about them so that I could live something resembling a normal life. Still, I was lonely._

_Until I met her._

_

* * *

It happened when I was having lunch by myself. Note that for the first time since I discovered my powers, I was doing so of my own volition. I didn't really know anyone there and I didn't much care to. Arrogant of me? Perhaps._

"_Hi," I heard a girl's soft voice greet me. "Mind if I sit with you?"_

"_It's a free country, go ahead," I replied idly, not even bothering to look at her._

_I heard the girl sit down but I still didn't look at her._

"_It's rude not to look at people when they try to talk to you," she said._

"_Maybe by your standards," I answered._

"_Why are you like that?" she asked._

"_Like what?" I asked._

"_Like that!" she exclaimed. "I'm only trying to be nice to you and you're acting like you don't care."_

"_That's because I don't," I answered. "Not really. Now kindly give me my space."_

_The girl huffed and I heard her rise from her seat and walk away. I chanced a look at her. She was barely five feet tall and dressed in the girls' uniform sweater, plaid skirt, knee-high white socks, and black shoes. To my own embarrassment, although I attribute this to my developing hormones, I noted that the sweater and skirt did little to nothing to hide her budding curves. Another thing I noted was the cascade of blood that was her hair._

_Yes, blood. A morbid metaphor for a child of only twelve, soon to be thirteen. However, that was the only red thing I could think of that suited her._

_After I finished my lunch, I went outside and found the girl with hair of cascading blood sitting on a bench. This time, I could see her face, childishly round with eyes of slate and lips like pale pink flower petals._

"_Hi," I said._

"_Go away," she said._

"_I'm sorry for being a jerk," I apologized. "I just haven't . . . gotten accustomed to people wanting to be nice to me."_

"_You're really oblivious, aren't you?" the girl spat._

"_Oblivious to what?"_ _I wondered._

"_You're very popular among the girls here," the girl answered. "I think it's your hair. It's a really pretty shade of silver."_

"_People think it's weird that I have silver hair," I said, blushing slightly. "And what do you mean I'm popular with girls?"_

"_They think you're cute," the girl answered._

"_Do you think I'm cute?" I asked._

"_Yeah," the girl replied with a giggle._

"_I . . . think you're cute, too," I admitted._

_This time, it was the girl's turn to blush._

"_What's your name?" I inquired._

"_Ariana," she responded._

"_Raziel," I offered._

"_Angel of mystery," Ariana spoke. "Fits you to a T."_

"_Huh?" I wondered, as I didn't know much about theology at the time._

"_In the Judeo-Christian tomes, your name belonged to an angel who was called the 'angel of mysteries,'" Ariana replied. "It works for you."_

_From that moment on, we bordered very much on inseparable. We had lunch together, we shared a few classes, and we always saw each other after our studies were through._

* * *

"Were you two in love?" Nightstar asked pointedly.

"I was twelve years old," Raziel replied. "I didn't exactly know what that sort of thing meant. Now for the love of God, let me continue."

Beast Girl snickered. "Is somebody jealous?"

Nightstar aimed the Bat-glare at her.

Raziel sighed and continued his story.

_

* * *

It was fight training time that day. Our instructors believed that we shouldn't rely merely on the powers our minds granted us; we should be able to use our bodies as well if we had to. The students, me included, were dressed in gym shorts and T-shirts. To my embarrassment, the girls' shorts were smaller than the boys', meaning that I could see a considerable amount of Ariana's legs. Embarrassing me even greater was the fact that we all had to spar in pairs and Ariana was my partner._

_Ariana_ _aimed a punch straight for my face, one that my reflexes easily enabled me to avoid. I grabbed her wrist and spun her a bit, then pinned her to the ground. To my surprise, she giggled, and I felt a strange sensation from being so close to her._

_So distracted was I that I allowed her to push me off her with her legs. I sprang to my feet, and she performed a capoiera move to knock my legs out from under me. Somehow, I saw it coming and I jumped out of the way. She got back on her feet and aimed a high kick at my chest, but I caught it, blushing as I surreptitiously gazed at the expanse of leg I was holding._

"_You mind letting go?" Ariana asked irritably._

_I gulped slightly. "S-sure," I replied and let go of her leg._

_Ariana_ _spun around with her leg still out and bent her other leg, swooping low to once again kick my legs out from under me. I jumped out of the way just like last time._

"_Familiar," I mumbled, only to barely avoid a kick to my head._

"_Still think that's familiar?" Ariana asked._

_I decided to go on the attack, kicking Ariana in the stomach. She staggered back and I pressed my attack with a series of punches and kicks. Every counterattack she made I blocked almost before it happened, although I was confused as to how I was doing this. It didn't matter, as I did beat her._

* * *

"_How did I do that?" I asked my instructor, a young woman who was nicknamed Bombshell._

"_Do what?" Bombshell asked with a soft smile._

"_When I was sparring with Ariana, I was blocking and evading every move of hers as though someone was telling me exactly when she was going to strike," I replied._

"_I see," Bombshell said. "Raziel, you can see the truth. You can see beyond the concealments of another's mind. Would that not enable you to also predict what moves a person will make when they fight you?"_

"_Could be," I concluded._

"_You'll be very formidable one day, Raziel," Bombshell said. "For now, get some rest."_

_

* * *

As time passed, I learned to harness my aura in new ways. For example, I found that I could concentrate my aura in my index and middle fingers, enabling me to slice through any material. My control of this ability was so fine that I could choose to slice through only the inside of an object while leaving the outside completely unscathed. My aura also increased my strength and speed to the point where I could dodge bullets – provided I was far enough away from the gun firing them – and lift a medium-sized car. In addition, I had an advanced form of peripheral vision that enabled me to see in 360 degrees, only if I wanted to see above me, I'd have to look up just like everyone else. When the technicians were measuring how fast I could shoot my projectiles, they discovered that I was shooting them at a speed of two thousand feet per second._

_As happy as I was at the school, I couldn't help but feel something was wrong. After all, I could "see" past lies and deceptions and concealments._

_One night, I was trying to sleep, but the increasing sense of foreboding simply would not leave me alone. Finally, I got up from my bed and threw on a robe over my pajamas. I exited my room and went straight to Ariana's, despite the fact that the girls' rooms were on a separate floor from the boys' and being caught there could get me in serious trouble._

_I rapped on the door softly, loud enough so she could hear me but not so loud that I alerted everyone to my presence._

_Ariana_ _opened the door, looking at me through unfocused, sleepy eyes._

"_Raziel, what are you doing up?" she asked._

_While I tried to formulate an answer, I noticed that she was in pajamas as well, although hers couldn't quite hide her developing frame._

"_I'm sorry," I finally answered. "I shouldn't have bothered you. It's nothing."_

"_Raziel, I –" Ariana started to say, but I took off from her door and sped to the elevator._ _I quickly entered and went down to the third subbasement level._

_When the elevator door opened, I saw things that no boy of thirteen should have seen. The first thing I saw was people using telekinesis to levitate blades and throw them at targets, aiming for the heart or the head. Another thing I saw was a cyberpath with his head hooked up to a computer screen, the information he was accessing with his mind projected on the screen. The screen flashed images of satellites, experimental aircraft and spacecraft, and blueprints of military battle-suits._

"_What the hell is this?" I whispered._

_I saw men approach me from the sides, dressed in black Kevlar suits with additional body armor for the chest, shoulders, arms, and legs and featureless black helmets covering their faces. All of them were pointing strange-looking guns at me._

_I shifted into a battle stance and summoned my invisible blades._

"_Come on, assholes," I challenged._

_The next thing I knew, the armored men were shooting at me with their strange guns. I dodged to the best of my ability, which was made rather easy when I could see everything coming at me as though I was looking right at it. To confuse them, I threw my robe off and at two of the guards, obscuring their vision. I charged at another guard and flipped over his projectiles, coming down and slicing his gun in half with my invisible blades. I kicked him in the chest, but to my surprise, I felt a static charge that knocked me off my feet. As I fell, I felt one of the projectiles hit me._

_I was rather astonished when it turned out that the projectile resembled chewed-up gum. I was even more astonished when I felt it melt through my pajama pants leg and into my skin._

"_What is this?" I asked._

"_Fast-acting sedative that can melt through clothing and skin," one of the guards replied. "You'll be asleep in less than a minute."_

_I could see darkness gathering on the edges of my vision._

Oh, man, _I thought. _I can't fall asleep now. No . . . gotta fight it . . .

_But it was too late. The sedative was doing its work and I was falling into the embrace of Morpheus._

_

* * *

When I awoke, I was lying in a cell. "Where am I?"_

"_Where you cannot do us harm, young man," Bombshell's voice responded from an intercom. "We'll erase your memory of what you've seen and we'll return you to your room. You'll fall asleep and wake up believing nothing was ever wrong."_

_That was all she said._

I'm not letting them do this to me, _I thought._ This is all wrong and I'm going to find a way to put a stop to them.

But how? _another_ _voice in my mind asked._ You've got powers and some skills, but you're a kid. They've got the edge over you in numbers and experience.

So what? _I asked._ I'll still take them on.

If you're gonna do that, you'd better take it all the way, _the voice advised. _They'll probably kill you if you try to resist. That sedative they dosed you with, they could pump enough into you to make you a vegetable for the rest of your life or kill you.

I can't do that, _I protested. _I'm not a killer.

So what? _the voice asked._ Have someone else do it. Oh, wait. You don't have "someone else."

_If I didn't have someone else to do my dirty work, I concluded, then I would simply have to create someone to do it._

_

* * *

An hour later, two guards opened the door. "It's time, kid. Come with us and you won't get hurt."_

"_I'm not the one you need to worry about," my voice spoke in a deadly hiss. My body lunged at the two guards, who shot at me with their sedative guns. My body dodged with near-demonic ease and ripped apart their guns – and them – with that selfsame ease._

_The alarms blared as my body ran down the halls, painting them red with the blood of generally anyone stupid enough to get in its way._

_My body's carnage was interrupted by Bombshell, who looked at it with a rather dismayed expression._

"_You had so much potential," she remarked almost sadly. "You still do. You'll make a fine assassin."_

"_I don't kill for anybody except me," my body snarled. "You wanna go next, bitch?"_

"_I wouldn't have figured you to have such a crude mouth, Raziel," Bombshell commented. "You always seemed like such a genteel young man."_

"_The name's Memnoch," my body snarled, "and your name is Dead Girl."_

_Bombshell raised her hands as though she was about to snap her fingers, only to bring them down along with energy arcs that flew at Memnoch, who dodged them. She shot more energy arcs at him, but he was dodging them with an ease that bordered on insane. He charged at Bombshell as she continued to shoot at him._

"_I don't have anything on me, but I'm sure I could still do some real damage," Memnoch hissed and slashed at Bombshell with his – my – invisible blade. She dodged, but he slammed his hand onto her abdomen and charged that particular section of her body with enough of his aura to push her into some rather sensitive equipment. Memnoch removed a strand of hair from his – my – head and my aura caused it to harden into a deadly needle. He shot it at the machinery in which Bombshell was trapped and said machinery exploded. "Sayonara, bitch."_

_Satisfied with his work, Memnoch went to the elevator and went up the floors to the boys' dorm. There, I reclaimed control and dressed in a black polyester jacket, teal shirt, and black jeans. I packed a duffle bag with everything necessary and slipped out through the window, using my bed sheets as a rope._

_Once out, I ran. I ran as far and as fast as I could, with only one destination in mind._

_My parents' house._

_

* * *

I eventually did get there, despite tiring myself even with my aura-enhanced stamina. It was almost dawn, so I assumed that everyone was asleep. Oh, well, I reasoned, I'd just take a bit of a nap now and see them when the sun was completely out and about._

_I'd never get that chance, though. There was meager light, but just enough for me to see a dark liquid on the floor._

"_Aimee must have spilled her drink," I said to myself. I went to clean it up, only to see Aimee herself lying on the floor. "Aimee?"_

_A closer look revealed a large, bloody hole in her stomach, as though someone had detonated a small bomb inside her._

"_No," I murmured. "Aimee . . . ?"_

_I turned and started to run to my parents' bedroom, only to trip over something and fall. I looked behind me, horror-struck to discover that I had just tripped over my parents' bodies._

_I did the only thing any child with a modicum of sanity in their bodies did. I screamed. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed until I no longer had a voice._

_As it turned out, my screams awoke a neighbor and she ran into the house._

"_Raziel!" she exclaimed. "What's –" She cut off her own sentence with an appalled scream when she saw what had happened to my parents._

"_They're – they're . . ." I uttered, barely able to speak after all the screaming I had just done._

"_I-I'll call the police," she stammered. "In the meantime, you come with me. You don't need to see this."_

* * *

Raziel stopped, his eyes closed, fighting off the ghastly memories.

"I'm sorry you went through all that," Samara said.

Raziel looked at her with a slight blink. In all the time he'd known her, he'd never heard her express that kind of sympathy before.

"Believe it or not, this isn't where my story ends," Raziel spoke. "I was only a boy of thirteen at the time and now I am close to my eighteenth birthday. You need to know how I got from there to here. It won't be an easy story for me to finish . . . but if you'll listen, I'll tell. I'll tell it all."

* * *

End Notes: So now you know a little bit more about Raziel's past. That's not the whole story of his life yet; you'll get the rest in the next chapter.

If you wanted me to describe Memnoch's carnage, I couldn't, not without upping the rating to M, as he is quite the sick little bastard when he wants to be.

Who is Azazel? What is his relation to Raziel? He called him "son" in the last chapter and he looks very much like an older Raziel, but didn't this chapter state that Raziel already had a father? Just something for you to ponder, as I already know the answer and I like making people guess.

If you think the name Bombshell is familiar, you must have watched the Batman Beyond episode "Mind Games." The Bombshell that appeared in this chapter is the Bombshell that appeared in that episode of Batman Beyond, only much younger. The Brain Trust I keep mentioning is the same Brain Trust from that episode.

Next chapter: More of Raziel's life story. See you next chapter. In the meantime, feel free to review.


	12. Mentality: Feiticeira

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 2: "Mentality"

Chapter 4: "Feiticeira"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; the former is owned by DC Comics and the latter is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everyone else, except for anyone you might recognize, belongs to me.

Author's note: So there you have it. The bloody tale of how Raziel came to be what he is . . . but that's only the first part. There's more to come, as well as a special surprise for all of you reading this story.

Also, I've edited chapters 1 and 2 of this arc so that what happens in the later flashbacks in this chapter will make more sense.

* * *

Raziel took a deep breath before continuing his story._

* * *

The police never were able to find my family's killers. That didn't matter. I already knew who did it and the knowledge ripped me apart. There were only two things I wanted then: to join my family and to end the lives of those who murdered them._

_In the meantime, I was placed in foster care with the Millers. I didn't much like my time there, to put it lightly._

* * *

"What's not putting it lightly?" Samara asked.

Raziel gazed at her, amethyst meeting mauve. "They would regularly beat me senseless for the smallest infractions . . . and I incurred their displeasure very often. Half the time I sensed they were just looking for an excuse to take their anger out on me."

"Why would the foster care system allow those people to be part of it?" Mercury asked.

"Because the Millers were very good at keeping their abuse of me under wraps," Raziel answered, "especially since I healed faster than the average person." He sighed sadly. "Evil isn't always found in the lairs of super-villains."

"So what happened?" Beast Girl questioned.

"I ran away," Raziel replied. "Six months of abuse and I'd finally had enough, so I fled, despite Memnoch screaming in my head that I ought to slaughter them both for their treatment of me."

_

* * *

I soon discovered that my psychic talents could be turned to thievery. I quickly took to the role of a pickpocket, stealing wallets and using the credit cards inside to buy hotel rooms. I didn't exactly feel like sleeping on the streets; even I was too vulnerable there. Even so, there were times when I didn't have enough for a hotel room and had to make do with the streets._

_One night, I made the mistake of stealing the wallet of a man whose name I later discovered to be Shido Fukata. His men spotted me and gave chase._

"_Hey!"_

"_Stop, you little punk!"_

_I finally turned around and threw my ill-gotten gains at the suited men, using their surprise to get the drop on them. The first one fell quickly enough, but the other two were harder. After all, I was not that much taller than five feet then and was almost thinner than a rail, while they were six-foot, solidly built men. I ultimately lost, but neither one of them would be able to make good use of their arms for a while._

_The men brought me before Fukata, who inspected me with his eyes. Thankfully, he didn't harbor any desire for my underdeveloped frame._

"_Have you been eating?" he asked._

"_What do you care?" I asked._

"_I care . . . because I'm getting you out of here," he answered. "You probably haven't had anything decent to eat in a while and you're kind of a mess. No way anyone who's gonna be working for me will look the way you do."_

"_I'm gonna work for you?" I wondered._

"_Why not?"_ _Fukata responded. "You've got spunk if you're willing to steal from me. I admire that. And the way you fought my men shows me that you know something about the martial arts. A little rough, but all diamonds start out as dirty rocks. So what do you say?"_

_I weighed my options as carefully as could be expected from a fourteen-year-old boy. On the one end, I could continue to live on the streets and in hotel rooms bought with stolen credit cards, scrounging for an existence. On the other end, I could go with Fukata and have a steady home, as well as something to do, even if it didn't seem all that legal._

"_You have a deal," I finally decided._

_Fukata_ _took me to a large, lavish mansion that I took to be his. Once inside, he ordered a manservant to escort me to the bath. The manservant followed his orders and I was taken to a room with a large tub in the floor. The servant filled the tub with warm water and left me alone._

_I stripped off my clothes and entered the tub, allowing myself to relax for a few minutes before beginning to cleanse myself of the detritus that had built up from my time on the streets._

_After about ten or fifteen minutes, I exited the bath and dried off. I put on a robe and emptied the bath. Another servant came to escort me to a room and I gratefully followed her._

"_Holy crap," I uttered when I saw my room. Warm blue drapes covered the windows and the walls were painted a brooding indigo. Black carpeting covered the hardwood floor near the queen-sized bed that stood in the center of my room. A mahogany five-drawer dresser stood at one side of my room, while a wardrobe closet stood at another side. A nightstand sat next to my bed and a large desk with a desktop computer stood in a corner of my room._

"_I will leave you," the servant said and did exactly that._

_I removed my robe and opened my wardrobe, finding many pairs of pants (most of them black), many buttoned and Asian-style shirts (also mostly colored black), and some button-less jackets (colored white). I happened to spot several gi and hakama, which were mostly colored black or dark blue, as well as a few suits. At the bottom of the wardrobe were a few pairs of black steel-toed boots as well as more formal shoes._

_I removed a pair of pants from its hanger and donned them, along with an Asian-style shirt and the steel-toed black boots. I found a comb and took it to my hair to stop it from curling. Once that was over with, I sat on my bed and relaxed until I heard another servant calling for me._

_When I came downstairs, I found a meal fit for a prince waiting for me._

"_Ah, hello," Fukata greeted me. "I'm sure you're very hungry. Please eat."_

_I could sense that the meal wasn't poisoned, so I sat down, picked up the chopsticks, and began eating. It was rather awkward at first, as I had never eaten with chopsticks before. I did manage to get the hang of it, at least enough not to royally embarrass myself._

"_You said I was going to work for you," I said. "What am I going to do for you? Kill people?"_

"_Yes," Fukata admitted._

"_And don't you think I'm a little young to be your personal assassin?" I asked._

"_Is that not what the people who taught you in that school intended you to be in the first place?" Fukata asked._

"_How do you know about that?" I questioned._

"_I had my men look into you," Fukata answered. "You're a very interesting boy, Raziel Crestmore. And very skilled. You just need someone to shave off the rough edges."_

"_And that's going to be you?" I asked._

"_Not quite," Fukata replied. "Your combat training will be overseen by someone else. Everything else will be left to me."_

"_So what are you, the yakuza?" I asked._

"_Yes, the Kokuryu syndicate," Fukata replied. "You really have no choice in the matter. Where will you go, back to your foster parents, who beat you day in and day out? Back to the Brain Trust, to be turned into a psychic weapon? And it's not like your father's relatives will take you in . . . and your mother doesn't really have much in the way of family."_

_I glared at him._

"_You just have that look in your eyes because you know I'm telling you the truth," Fukata said. "Don't mind me; I like seeing that barely repressed fury. You will make a fine killer, Raziel-kun."_

_That was the beginning of it all. My combat training was overseen by an assassin who called herself Tokyo Rose. The same sixth sense that allowed me to see what others hid within their hearts allowed me to read her moves nine times out of ten. That didn't guarantee me victory, of course, as she was a far more experienced martial artist than me. Besides, what good did reading my opponent's moves do me if I couldn't counter them?_

"_You're improving, boy," Tokyo Rose remarked after our latest exercise, extending a hand to me. I took it and let her help me to my feet._

"_Thank you," I said, blushing slightly._

_Tokyo_ _Rose sighed. "Don't act like an embarrassed child around me. I expect you to have more fortitude than that when addressing me."_

_I looked her dead in the eye and spoke again. "Thank you."_

"_That's more like it," Tokyo Rose said with a glint of approval in her eyes._

_When I wasn't training with Tokyo Rose, Fukata had tutors instructing me in English, Japanese, mathematics, science, literature, history, and social sciences. I had to admit . . . I was becoming a rather well-rounded little murderer._

_To expedite the learning process, I fractured my mind again, creating two more personalities. The first was Gabriel, who would organize every bit of knowledge I acquired in a mental library. The second was Uriel, who consisted of pure, undiluted logic and did not allow emotion or preconceptions to interfere with the acquisition of knowledge. The good part of that was that he could check Memnoch, who was little more than a rabid dog. Since puberty had kicked into full swing, he'd done little to nothing except lust for gratuitous amounts of blood and sex. Until Uriel, it had become rather hard to tune him out, especially when Tokyo Rose was instructing me._

_As I improved in the arts of combat, I thought to contain that knowledge within someone who could best utilize it, someone who lived for the fight. Once again, I fractured my mind, creating Michael, the warrior angel._

* * *

"Don't you think you'd go insane eventually, having all those other people in there with you?" Bladefire asked.

"Not really," Raziel replied. "It's actually because of them that I've maintained as much sanity as I have."

"How's that?" Beast Girl asked.

"Share the pain," Raziel answered simply. "Now . . ."

_

* * *

After about a year's worth of training, Fukata judged me ready for my first kill. I donned a version of what was to be my traditional outfit: a white haori jacket with the symbol of the black dragon on the back, a black shirt with the kanji for demon over my heart, and loose black pants with numerous zippers and buckles. The zippers kept my pockets closed, pockets that were filled with seemingly innocuous objects like marbles, dice, paper clips, and needles. Of course, in my hands, those objects were not so innocuous._

"_Who am I to kill?" I asked._

_Fukata_ _laid a picture in front of me, of a sharply dressed man with slicked hair._

"_His name is Takaya Akashi," he replied. "We gave him the money to start his business and all we expected was a little help from him. Unfortunately, he has been having thoughts of going fully legit and all our persuasive efforts have fallen flat. So he has to be terminated."_

"_I see," I stated with not a trace of emotion in my voice. That had been taken care of by Gabrielle, who was the receptacle of my feelings of guilt, compassion, and generally anything else that would interfere with my duties. Oddly enough, this personality was female. I had experimented with letting her have control of my body, only to discover that when that happened, my aura created the extremely realistic illusion of a girl's body in place of my own._

* * *

"And how did you know it was realistic?" Mercury asked, only to be smacked upside the head by Beast Girl.

"Quit being a pervert," the shape-shifting geomancer grumbled.

Raziel sighed tolerantly.

"It was a perfectly innocent question!" Mercury protested. "I wasn't trying to be perverted!"

"Just let him go on," Inferno sighed.

_

* * *

I hid in the shadows that night, waiting for Akashi to come out of the gentlemen's club he frequented. He exited about twenty minutes after I arrived, which was a good thing, too, because I had decided right then and there that I didn't like waiting for my victims to show up. It gave me far too much time to think about what I was doing._

"_Akashi," my voice spoke, utterly devoid of emotion._

"_Who's there?" Akashi asked._

"_Your executioner," Uriel replied. "You should never have turned your back on the Kokuryu."_

"_Leave me the hell alone!" Akashi exclaimed and tried to get past Uriel and into his convertible. Uriel tripped him and lifted him to his feet, supporting him with one hand._

"_Go ahead, try to run," Uriel suggested with not a trace of mirth or mocking or malice in his voice._

_Akashi_ _ran to his convertible, started it, and drove._ _Uriel pulled a needle out of his pocket and shot it at the convertible's engine, setting off a killing explosion. He walked away from the burning wreckage, allowing me to resume control._

"_Good job, Raziel-kun," Fukata spoke. "I am quite proud of you."_

"_Thank you, Fukata-sama," I answered._

"_You may retire to your room for now," he said. "Get some rest, Kokuryu no Kiba."_

_I did exactly as he said, going to my room. I couldn't sleep, though; I was too busy thinking about what I had done. I hadn't killed for the sake of my own survival; I had killed because someone told me to do it, pointed me at a target, and set me loose. Silent sobs wracked my mind and soul, Gabrielle weeping for the thing I'd become because I couldn't weep._

_About forty-five minutes later, I heard someone enter my room. It was a girl, a few years older than I was, petite with slight curves outlined by the black shift she wore. Long, straight black hair flowed down to her waist and almond-shaped dark eyes peered shyly at me._

"_Hello," I greeted. "What are you doing here?"_

"_Fukata-sama sent me," the girl replied softly._

_Reading her soul – as I had come to call my sixth sense – revealed the reason she had come, which was to "relax" me._

"_What's your name?" I asked._

"_Mariko," the girl replied as she sat down next to me._

Poor girl, _I thought._ She must be new at this.

"_It's ok," I whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you."_

Aw, come on! _Memnoch exclaimed. _How frigging compassionate can you get? Let's just do her and be done with it!

She's scared, you horny twit, _Gabriel answered._ The way you'd like to "do" her; you'd practically be raping her. We have to put her at ease.

_Mariko gazed warily at me. I looked into her eyes and reached out to gently stroke her face._

"_I won't hurt you," I whispered, but somehow I had the feeling that it wasn't really me talking anymore. I almost felt like I was outside myself, watching my own actions like it was happening on a TV screen._

_As "I" continued to stroke her face, I felt her relaxing, growing more comfortable with me. I began to kiss her gently, my lips tenderly caressing hers. While I kissed her, one hand was in her hair and the other was moving down her side to her hip. To my relief, she kissed me back and I tasted cinnamon on her lips._

_The strange thing was that I felt that I was no longer in control of my body, that it was someone else kissing and caressing Mariko._

What's going on? _I wondered silently._

Relax, Kiba-chan, _a voice that caressed my mind like one would caress a lover whispered._ I'm only aiding you in making this little beauty comfortable.

Who are you? _I asked._

Call me Samael, _the voice replied. _But I also like to be called Lucifer Morningstar.

_I was rather shocked, as I had not created this latest persona._

You did create me, _Samael whispered._ Just not consciously.

_I heard and felt Mariko moan into Samael's kiss as he continued to caress her, his hand working its way up her shift, closer to her . . ._

_I attempted to shut myself out of the experience, to close my mind off to it. Unfortunately, Samael kept me aware for each and every moment – the sight of her in the throes of ecstasy, the softness of her skin on my hands, her sighs and whimpers as this newest persona made love to her._

* * *

"Uh, how did he know how to do all that?" Mercury asked.

"The Devil is a seducer first and foremost," Samara replied. "He was the most beautiful of all the angels until his rebellion, so a persona patterned after him would naturally be very good at charming women."

"Plus, my sexual education was very thorough," Raziel admitted. "Now, if you don't mind . . ."

_

* * *

The morning saw me wondering just what had happened . . . and with a new weapon in my hands. I laughed a little at that. In my experience over the past year with the Kokuryu syndicate, I'd found that humans were full of all sorts of cravings. If Samael-slash-Lucifer Morningstar was anything like his namesake, then those were cravings that he could easily warp to his advantage._

_As time passed, I became Fukata's right-hand man. Not only was I his assassin, I also served as his negotiator. Uriel was impossible to intimidate, simply due to the fact that he operated purely on reason and not greed or fear or anger or hate, emotions that could easily be manipulated to another's advantage. Additionally, his coldly dispassionate nature had frightened many a person into compliance with Fukata's demands. Memnoch came into play only when a person was especially resistant, often inflicting just enough bodily pain to convince someone to see things Fukata's way. As for Samael . . . he was a little more indirect. In other words, if the person with whom Fukata was negotiating had a lover who was aware of his yakuza connections, Samael tracked her (or him) down and gave her (or him) the best sex of her (or his) life, which would convince her (or him) to persuade her (or his) lover to go Fukata's way._

* * *

"Man, you sound like you had quite a life," Inferno remarked.

"Yeah, sounds like you had it made," Samara agreed. "What made you give it up?"

_

* * *

Sometime after my sixteenth birthday, I received another assignment from Fukata._

"_This man," he said, laying out a picture on the table that separated us._

"_Isn't he one of your lieutenants?" I asked._

"_He's been talking to the FBI," Fukata answered. "Softhearted traitor."_

"_You want me to kill him?" I surmised._

"_Not yet, Kokuryu no Kiba," Fukata contradicted. "He loves his family very much." He laid out another picture, this time of the traitorous lieutenant with his wife and two small children, the eldest being about the same age I was when I first came into my powers._

_I gasped in horror when I read Fukata's intentions. "You want me to kill his family, don't you?"_

"_Preferably in front of him," Fukata added._

"_I won't do it," I stated. "I refuse. His family has nothing to do with this life. I have no reason to kill them."_

"_You will do as I say, Kokuryu no Kiba," Fukata stated in a tone that left no room for argument._

"_I see," I said. "Very well."_

_That was when I fled from the Kokuryu, from the man who had given me a home and saved me from the streets. However, I knew that if I didn't kill the lieutenant's family, someone else would. I was not going to let that happen._

_By the time I got there, someone else had reached them. He was clad in black with a silver mask covering his face, bearing the mark of the Kokuryu – the black dragon._

"_Who are you?" I asked._

"_I'm here to do the job you won't, you little _gaijin _coward," the masked assassin replied._

"_I won't let you kill them," I declared. "They have nothing to do with this."_

_The masked one drew his katana and slashed at me. I dodged the slash, but barely._

"_What the –?"_ _I wondered. "How can you be that fast?"_

"_A little experiment Fukata-sama's been working on," the masked assassin replied. "That's all you need to know."_

"_You may be fast, but you're not that good," I retorted as I pulled out three _senbon _needles._

"_Do your worst, Crestmore," the masked assassin sneered._

_I threw all three needles at him, each moving at a speed of two thousand fps. The masked assassin used his katana to deflect them all._

"_Is that the best you can do?" he asked._

"_Who are you?" I asked._

"_I'm called Wyndragyn," the masked assassin replied before charging at me again. I called forth my psychic blades and we slashed each other. His wound healed almost instantly, but I was still bleeding in spite of my aura's healing abilities. Notwithstanding that injury, I was still determined to stop Wyndragyn._

_Wyndragyn_ _slashed at me again and I kicked his katana out of his hand. He lunged for it, but I slid under him and kicked his legs out from beneath him. He fell, but landed on his hand and twisted into a kick that brought me low._

"_Try harder," he snarled._

_I kicked him three times, one high, one low, and one in the center of his body. Unfortunately, he blocked each and every kick, grabbing my ankle on the last one and twisting me into the air. I spun in midair and kicked him again._

_As we fought, I had this one question on my mind: How could he match me so well? Was it possible that he could read my moves the way I could read his?_

_It didn't matter. I wasn't going to let him kill that family._

_The fight continued, us trading punches and kicks that would seriously incapacitate – if not kill – an ordinary human. While we were both quick to recover from our injuries, I quickly noticed that my own powers of physical restoration paled in comparison to those of Wyndragyn._

"_You really ought to give up," he advised me in an almost sympathetic voice. "We may be equal in most of our abilities, but I can keep going longer than you can."_

He's right, _Uriel stated._ He heals far quicker than you do, so if nothing else, this is a battle of attrition . . . one he'll eventually win unless you end his life right now.

_I snarled and went for his katana, intending to use it to decapitate him. Unfortunately, he beat me to it by a fraction of a second and stabbed me in the gut with it. I could practically feel him smirking as he removed it from me._

"_You'll live," he said. "I was careful to avoid your vital organs . . . and that aura of yours ought to sew you back up again. In the meantime, I'm going to let you bleed here, so close and yet so far away."_

_He walked into the house and for the next few minutes, the sounds of bloodshed filled my ears._

* * *

By this point, all the other Titans were gaping at Raziel in horror at what they had just heard.

"I couldn't take him," he mumbled. "I couldn't take him and he murdered innocent people." He looked up at the others with a haunted expression. "Before that night, I either killed for my own survival or I killed people whose deaths I could justify because they were corrupt. I never once killed a person I deemed an innocent . . . until that night."

"You didn't kill them," Nightstar said.

"Didn't I?" Raziel asked. "Didn't my own weakness, my own inability to outfight Wyndragyn cause their deaths?"

"You're not the only person who's seen innocent people die simply because they weren't strong enough or fast enough," Bladefire answered with weary sadness in his voice.

"So what happened to you after that?" Beast Girl asked.

"I got up and fled as fast as I could," Raziel explained. "While doing so, I happened upon an armored car robbery that you six were trying to stop."

"I remember that," Mercury said. "While we were watching you make short work of those robbers, I couldn't help thinking, 'That is one bad mother –" A smack upside the head interrupted him.

"Shut your mouth," Beast Girl quipped.

"I was only talking about Raziel," Mercury whined.

Inferno snickered. "Yeah, and then we had to drag you back to the Tower because you were bleeding all over yourself. Wouldn't tell us what happened to you, though, although we did notice you were healing faster than normal."

"So why did you let me stay here?" Raziel asked. "Why did you let me become a Titan, even with all the things I refused to tell you?"

"Mar'i has pretty good people instincts," Bladefire replied. "And Terri liked your scent, even with the blood covering it."

"Plus, I'm an empath," Samara added. "If you had any bad intentions toward us, I'd have known."

"Just one more question: What were you doing that Mercury brought you home kneecapped and bleeding everywhere?" Nightstar asked.

"I was going to kill Ariana," Raziel admitted shamefully. "I was going to kill her and then I was going to leave. I didn't have the heart to do it myself, so I had Uriel do the job for me. He was winning, but this man showed up and beat the tar out of him. He had a psychic blade, too, but it was a sword in comparison to my knife. And when Uriel shot the bullets at him, he shot back."

"Do you have any idea who he is?" Inferno inquired.

"No," Raziel answered. "He looked like me, only older, and he claimed to be my father."

"I thought your father was dead," Nightstar said.

"Unless the man who died wasn't my father after all," Raziel concluded with a heavy sigh. "I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; I was the only person in my family with silver hair and purple eyes."

"We'd better let you get some rest," Beast Girl said. She gave Raziel a brief hug. "Get better soon."

"Thanks, Ter," Raziel said.

The other Titans left the infirmary one by one, except for Nightstar.

"You're staying?" Raziel wondered.

"Yeah," Nightstar replied, reaching out and squeezing his hand gently.

"I'm happy you're staying," Raziel said.

Nightstar blushed faintly.

_

* * *

They finally know . . . and they don't hate me, he thought. __That's a relief._ he thought. 

_Uh-huh, means we can get to the good stuff!_ Memnoch exclaimed. _Nothing like a good sympathy lay to ease the aches and pains._

Gabriel sighed and pushed his glasses up on his face. _Is that all you think about, Memnoch? Ways to get "laid"?_

_Hey, if you'd get laid, you wouldn't be so uptight and obsessed with your books,_ Memnoch retorted.

_Your style, if you can call it that, wouldn't suit a girl like Mar'i at all,_ Samael remarked. _If you wish a woman to be yours, you must be willing to delay your own satisfaction to focus on hers and I don't see you having the patience for such a thing._

_Shove off,_ Memnoch grumbled.

As this was going on, Gabrielle drew in her sketchpad.

_What's this?_ Michael asked as he loomed over the most emotional of Raziel's seven personas.

_Like you don't know, silly!_ Gabrielle replied joyfully. _It's Mar'i in flight!_

Michael looked at the sketch, which was indeed Nightstar in flight. _She looks like an angel._

_That's because she is,_ Gabrielle answered with a wide smile on her face.

* * *

In the real world, Raziel looked at the hand that was holding his and the beautiful girl attached to it. He wondered if life could get any better . . . and remembered that it could get worse.

* * *

End Notes: Ah, so it ended on a semi-good note. The whole bloody truth is out and nobody hates Raziel for it. The walls have been torn down, so everybody's happy, right? Well, hang on for the next chapter because that's where things really start to get rocking. Without giving too much away, Raziel decides to settle accounts with the Kokuryu syndicate once and for all . . . encountering an enemy-slash-ally of the Titans in the process and indirectly contributing to the return of an old Titans nemesis. You wanna know who he is?

Well, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to wait for the next chapter.

Tokyo Rose is not an OC; she's a character from the Kingdom Come miniseries. I was originally planning to use David Cain, an assassin in Batman's continuity and the father of Cassandra Cain, the third Batgirl, but I realized he'd be too old in the Future Storm timeline. Then I remembered Tokyo Rose from Kingdom Come and I decided to use her.

"Kiba-chan," the nickname Samael uses for Raziel, means "little fang" in Japanese.

"Gaijin" is Japanese for "foreigner."

Since I've now made it clear that Raziel and Wyndragyn knew each other before their meeting in the first chapter of this arc, I had to go back and alter a few things in that and the second chapter to make this more evident.

Why did I name the yakuza syndicate Raziel was in after my penname? Actually, it's a very interesting coincidence; there really was a yakuza syndicate called the Kokuryu-kai. So I figured I'd use the name.

There, I'm done. You're free to review.


	13. Mentality: Engines

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 2: "Mentality"

Chapter 5: "Engines"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The specific characters of Nightstar, Mercury, and The Ravager do not belong to me; the first and third are owned strictly by DC and the second is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everyone and everything else, unless it's someone or something you recognize from DC canon, belongs to me.

Author's note: So the truth about Raziel has come out. No wonder he's a bit messed up. Things are just gonna get worse for him here and to top all that off, an old enemy will return. I won't say who; I'm sure you've all drawn your own conclusions since I first mentioned this. Just hang on for the ride.

* * *

Over the next week, Raziel recovered rather nicely. By the morning after he'd first entered the infirmary, he was ready to resume his normal life as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. He was rather grateful that the Titans didn't treat him any differently now that they knew about his less-than-savory past . . . aside from Mercury hitting him up for tips on what to do should he and Beast Girl take that next step in their relationship.

"The most I can say is that you have to ease her into it," Raziel had said. "Don't rush, or you'll make her uncomfortable."

"I can be slow," Mercury had said. "I can be slow just for her."

"Yes and think about how taking your time with her will only heighten your passion for her," Raziel had added. "It'll be like sweet torment."

Mercury had blushed.

"Any other questions?" Raziel had asked.

Mercury had fidgeted, trying to figure out what else to ask.

"Everyone has to find their own rhythm," Raziel had advised. "What works for me may very well not work so well for you."

"Oh, ok," Mercury had said. "Thanks!" He had sped out of the room.

"So, you ready to spar?" Bladefire had asked. "I bet I could teach you a few things."

"Or the other way around," Raziel had challenged with a slight grin.

* * *

One night, Raziel hit a café, just looking for a cup of coffee and some poetry. That night was open mike night, so anyone and everyone was free to get up on stage and embarrass themselves.

"Nice place, huh?" a familiar voice commented.

Raziel turned in his seat and saw Ariana sitting next to him. "What do you want?"

"To talk," Ariana answered simply.

"You've recovered nicely," Raziel remarked with hardly a trace of emotion in his voice.

"Why are you so cold to me?" Ariana asked. "Do you . . . hate me?"

Raziel chuckled derisively. "Hate would imply that I feel _something_ for you."

"Don't be like that, Raziel," Ariana pleaded softly. "I know you still feel something for me."

"And would you possess some kind of empathic or telepathic ability?" Raziel asked.

"No, but –" Ariana started to say but Raziel cut her off.

"Then you don't know if I still feel anything for you," he answered coldly.

"I don't need to read your mind to know you still care for me," Ariana declared.

"Your presence is a blight upon what remains of my sanity," Raziel spoke, standing from his seat and starting to walk away, leaving his coffee unfinished. To his irritation, Ariana followed him, much like a lovesick puppy would follow her master. "Leave me alone. If you're going to kill me, get on with it. Just don't cling to me like a lovesick leech."

"Why did you leave?" Ariana asked softly.

"Because the Brain Trust is an organization of filthy murderers and spies," Raziel replied.

"We're better," Ariana stated. "Don't you get it, Raziel? We owe nothing to normal humanity. Nothing. We have gifts and we have the right to use them."

"Yes, but to protect those who cannot protect themselves," Raziel countered, "not to kill and exploit them."

"Normal humans had their day," Ariana uttered. "It's our turn now."

"These harbingers of a new world murdered my parents," Raziel hissed. "They murdered my little sister!"

"They would have only held you back," Ariana said. "Like the Titans are holding you back." Her voice softened. "Come back to me, Raziel. Please."

"_No,_" Raziel answered firmly, drawing three kunai and throwing them at Ariana at bullet speed. Ariana generated a thermal shield to block the kunai and drain their momentum. Raziel charged into that thermal shield and slashed it with his psychic blades. Ariana pushed the shield forward and knocked Raziel into a car.

Raziel rose to his feet with a smirk. "Nice . . . but try fighting me without your thermokinetic skills. We'll see how much you've improved."

Ariana dissipated her shield and charged at Raziel, thrusting her flat hand at his throat. He moved his hand under hers and slapped it aside, then punched her in her exposed stomach. She grabbed his wrist and jabbed him in the gut with her knee, proceeding to chop him in the back when the force of the knee-jab made him bend double.

Raziel quickly recovered and swung his leg out, knocking Ariana's feet from under her. Ariana flipped back onto her feet as Raziel twisted into a maneuver that brought him back onto his feet.

Ariana jumped and did a spin-kick that Raziel caught with one hand. The redheaded thermokinetic simply kicked him with her other leg, but he blocked with his other hand. Ariana bent forward and rammed his head with hers, forcing him to let go. She flipped into a standing position as Raziel reeled from the head-butt.

The silver-haired psychic fighter was quick to recover, though, and he attacked Ariana with a series of rapid punches and kicks. Ariana blocked them to the best of her ability, but Raziel's speed and agility surpassed hers and more punches and kicks pierced her defenses than were deflected.

He finished with a kick to her solar plexus, knocking her into a car.

"Ugh," she uttered as she pulled herself out of the section of vehicle that had been bent and twisted around her when she crashed into it. She superheated the asphalt beneath their feet and it exploded in a wave rapidly traveling toward Raziel. He jumped off the road and onto a nearby car, only for the street to cave in beneath him due to the intense heat channeled into it. He leaped from car to car, being forced to escape from each one as the street continued to cave in.

"Stop running from me, Raziel," Ariana called out.

"Fine, I will," Raziel said and charged down the sidewalk at her, moving faster than a normal human would be able. He slashed at her with a psychic blade, slicing her chest and one of the chains that connected her choker to her small top. Ariana touched the wound and melted it shut with her thermokinesis, hissing in pain as she did it. She heated up her fist and punched Raziel, leaving an unsightly burn mark on his cheek, one that immediately began to heal.

This time, she didn't give him the opportunity to recover, punching him again and again with her heated fists.

"Not so pretty, now are you?" she taunted.

Raziel caught her fists, relying on his aura to filter out the pain and jabbing her in the gut with his knee. Once she dropped, he looked at his hands, which were already beginning to blister. Cursing under his breath and thinking he ought to start wearing gloves, he tore the hem of his shirt and wrapped the fabric around his hands as makeshift bandages.

Ariana got up with a sinister smile, shaping her power into burning needles that sliced Raziel again and again.

"Go, girl!" a mocking voice shouted. "Tear him up!"

Raziel snarled when he heard the voice. "Wyndragyn."

The masked assassin emerged from the shadows that had so carefully concealed him. "The one and only. Wow, Crestmore, never knew you were that much of a heartbreaker."

"Stay away," Ariana hissed, sounding more like a territorial feline than a human. "He's mine."

"So you say," Wyndragyn sneered. "Now, if you're done beating the crap out of that weak little bitch, you might want to take on a real warrior."

The air suddenly rippled like water and waves of heat crashed down on Wyndragyn. "Nice try, but the suit's made to be fireproof."

Ariana didn't give up, merely lashing at Wyndragyn with a fast spinning kick. Wyndragyn easily caught the kick and twisted her leg, making her spin sideways. She landed roughly but got up again, thrusting her fingers – which were surrounded by an aura of heat – at Wyndragyn's masked face. The Kokuryu assassin merely slapped her hand aside and chopped her in the throat, causing her to cough and gasp and choke.

"You're not so special after all," he muttered in distaste. "I can't believe Crestmore has so much trouble with you."

Ariana spat at him, resulting in a hard slap that knocked her into a nearby car.

"Men are always knocking me into cars," she groaned as she extricated herself from the vehicle that had caved in around her.

Wyndragyn drew his katana and charged at her, aiming to slice her throat. Instead, his blade burst into a million pieces. This didn't really deter him, as he threw the hilt at her throat with enough force to cave it in.

"How pathetic," he sighed as he watched her choke. "How very freaking pathetic." He turned to Crestmore. "Your turn now."

Raziel let out a furious yell and rushed Wyndragyn in spite of his injuries, slashing brutally with his psychic blades. The wounds quickly healed and he punched Raziel so hard that he landed next to Ariana.

"Ariana . . ." he murmured as he closed the distance to her.

She couldn't speak; her vocal cords had been crushed along with her windpipe. All she could really do was die.

He stared into her eyes, full of terror, sorrow, and bittersweet love. He knew, just from looking into those sad slate eyes, that she wanted her last words to be, "I love you."

"It's ok," he murmured. "I know. I know."

Ariana's eyes glimmered slightly, as if she was saying, "You really do care."

Raziel laid a gentle farewell kiss on Ariana's lips as she died, tears dripping down his face and onto hers.

"Now isn't that touching?" Wyndragyn mocked. "Now get up off that dead whore and die like a man."

Raziel growled his vitriol and pulled a fistful of bullets out of one of his pockets, pumping them full of his psychic aura and throwing them all at Wyndragyn. The bullets moved swiftly, as though they had been fired from an actual gun, only for Wyndragyn to avoid them all with lightning reflexes.

"Come on, Crestmore!" Wyndragyn yelled. "I expected better from you." He pulled out three shuriken and threw them at Raziel, who blocked them all with a _senbon,_ just before he threw that _senbon_ at Wyndragyn, aiming for the left eye-slit. The Kokuryu assassin barely caught the needle before it could pierce his eye. "You're improving."

"Screw you," Raziel spat and slashed at Wyndragyn with his psychic blades. Wyndragyn caught his wrists and kicked him hard in the chest, striking a particular wound left from Ariana's heat needles. Raziel stifled a cry of pain and dropped low, swinging his leg out to knock Wyndragyn's leg out from underneath him. Wyndragyn flipped into a standing position and Raziel spun upward to kick him in the chest.

The two warriors traded blows again and again with enough force to incapacitate, if not kill, a normal human. Raziel threw a punch at Wyndragyn, but the assassin caught the punch and threw Raziel at a nearby building. Raziel flipped in midair and kicked off the façade of the building, landing with a flying kick that impacted against Wyndragyn's mask. Wyndragyn caught his leg and threw him at a streetlamp. Raziel grabbed the streetlamp and performed an acrobatic maneuver that landed him on top of it.

He looked down at Wyndragyn and saw that his kick had broken the mask. It cracked in the middle and fell away as two unequal halves. The face that was revealed was a rather handsome face, almost feminine, only darker than Raziel's. Black hair and nearly-black eyes, pale skin . . . and a vertical scar below each eye.

"You're still alive," the unmasked Wyndragyn spoke. "No one who is alive has seen my face."

"Do you consider yourself too hideous to be seen by living beings?" Raziel mocked.

"Come down here and say that," Wyndragyn snarled.

Raziel jumped down onto the street and repeated his question.

Wyndragyn attacked him again, this time with a kunai. Raziel drew his own kunai and matched him, the two of them battling as though they were in a knife fight. Their kunai clashed against each other again and again, as each wielder tried to get past the other's defenses. It was rather impossible; Raziel could read Wyndragyn's moves and Wyndragyn probably could predict his. Even when one managed to get through, the other would quickly retaliate.

Raziel swung at Wyndragyn's throat, seeming to miss, only to spin, lower his kunai arm, and slash upward, catching the assassin by surprise. He was barely able to react in time to stop the psychic martial artist from slicing him in half and that cost him his arm, leaving a deep gash there.

The two thrust their kunai at each other once again, impaling each other. Raziel had Wyndragyn's kunai in his gut, somewhere between his liver and kidney. Wyndragyn had Raziel's kunai in his throat, somewhere between his vocal cords and windpipe. That wouldn't kill either of them, though, given their respective healing capacities. Still, it would buy Raziel time.

_

* * *

Now . . ._

* * *

"What happened to you?" Father Matthew asked.

"He murdered her . . . and I couldn't stop him," Raziel murmured. "I couldn't save her."

Father Matthew took stock of Raziel's wounds. "You need to go to a hospital, son."

"No . . ." Raziel contradicted. "I heal fast. Not quite as fast as some people I know, but fast enough." He tried to get up, only to be forced back down by the pain that flared in his gut. "I tried . . . so hard, to make myself a better man than what I was. To fight injustice and evil wherever I found it, to atone for my sins." He laughed bitterly. "Was there a point to it? Am I any better now than I was then? I failed my family . . . I failed that man's family . . . and I failed Ariana . . ."

Father Matthew shook him. "You are not a failure, Raziel. You still have a family . . . the Titans."

Raziel chuckled. "Ironically, I don't really feel all that familial when it comes to Nightstar."

"Glad you admitted it," a voice remarked from the back of the church hall.

Raziel turned and saw The Ravager, clad in her usual leather-chain mail-and-armor ensemble. She made the Sign of the Cross with a wicked smile on what could be seen of her face.

"Ravager," he hissed. "What are you doing here?"

"We both want the Kokuryu out of business," Ravager replied. "I suggest we join forces."

"What happened to Wyndragyn?" Raziel asked.

"Dispatched," Ravager answered, "but not before I got what I wanted from him."

"And that would be?" Raziel prompted.

"Get up first," Ravager sneered.

Father Matthew was about to say something, but Raziel stilled him.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Not really," Raziel answered, "but the Kokuryu have done enough damage to me and my life." He rose to his feet, his still-healing wounds making it painful for him to do so, and walked toward Ravager. "I'll see you again soon, Father."

"May God be with you, son," Father Matthew spoke.

Raziel smiled ironically. "God hasn't been with me in a long time."

* * *

The Ravager drove her motorcycle, a sleek black demon, like a madwoman with Raziel hanging onto her for dear life.

"Why do you want the Kokuryu out of the picture?" he asked.

"My father," Ravager replied simply.

"Would you be referring to Slade?" Raziel surmised.

"Yes," Ravager confirmed. "Wyndragyn was his bastard child."

This rather nonplussed Raziel.

"Not literally," Ravager amended. "His abilities were essentially the same as mine and my father's, only stronger in some respects, particularly his powers of regeneration. Of course, there was one thing even he couldn't regenerate . . ."

"You mean his head," Raziel uttered.

"My father disappeared almost twenty years ago," Ravager explained. "His last job before that was for the Kokuryu. I found out from Wyndragyn that they used the job as a trap and once he was subdued, they put him in cryogenic stasis and used his blood in experiments to create super-assassins."

"Now that's irony," Raziel remarked. "The military made Slade into a super-soldier and his blood was used to create super-assassins. But I only saw Wyndragyn . . ."

Ravager growled. "It's not funny. The reason you only saw Wyndragyn was that he was their first and only success."

"And that's why you want to take out the Kokuryu," Raziel mused.

"I'm going to free my father and then we're going to massacre the Kokuryu together," Ravager declared.

Raziel didn't say anything after that.

"I know what you're thinking, Crestmore," Ravager spoke. "You're thinking of bringing down the Kokuryu and somehow stopping me from awakening my father. Think again. With those wounds, you won't be able to do too much to stop me."

"Doesn't mean I won't make the attempt," Raziel rejoined.

"Of course," Ravager remarked. "You hero types are so much alike."

* * *

They finally stopped in front of the Kokuryu's unofficial headquarters, which happened to be a nightclub with an office at the top and all kinds of things happening in the basement. Ravager set up the kick-stop and got off the motorcycle with Raziel. The two of them stalked toward the entrance, only to be halted by the doorman.

"Do you have an invitation?" the doorman asked in Japanese.

"Kiss my ass," Raziel replied in perfect Japanese before roughly shoving the doorman aside. He and Ravager walked in, receiving stares from the patrons and hearing the sounds of Japanese rap being sung, oddly enough, by girls dressed in schoolgirl outfits. Raziel walked toward the back to the entrance to the basement levels. Several guards attempted to block him and Ravager succinctly disposed of them with her katana. "Did you have to do that?"

"Yes," Ravager answered simply as she and Raziel walked down the stairway to the basement levels of the nightclub.

"What are we looking for?" Raziel questioned.

"This is where they've been keeping my father," Ravager answered. "If you want, you can alert your fellow Titans."

"Already did that," Raziel stated.

"Oh," Ravager said. "Oh, well. Won't they get an unpleasant surprise?"

"And so will you, bitch," a voice answered from below them.

Raziel and Ravager looked down at the foot of the stairway and saw a squad of men in suits and sunglasses . . . all holding Uzis.

"Do our chances look good to you?" Raziel asked.

"What's the matter, scared to die?" Ravager asked.

"I'll take that as a yes," Raziel mused.

"You've got about three seconds to turn around and walk away," the apparent leader stated.

"Three, two, one – go time," Ravager sneered, leaping off the stairway and into a hail of gunfire. Raziel leaped after her, despite the fact that he was still recovering from his wounds and unlike her, his clothes were in no way bullet-resistant. The two ducked and weaved between bullets and cutting through their foes. While Raziel mainly focused on their guns, Ravager severed either the hands that were holding the guns or the fingers that were pulling the triggers.

Soon enough, the gunmen were all dealt with.

Ravager smiled sadistically at the blood on her sword and licked it. "So are you going to give us trouble now?"

One of the gunmen began talking rapidly and fearfully in Japanese.

"I'll take that as a no," Ravager spoke and walked away with Raziel.

The two martial artists descended to the lowest level of the club, which happened to be a laboratory. They could tell by the pristine whiteness of the walls and the high-tech scientific equipment. Ravager walked through the laboratory with the sole intention of finding her father, while Raziel followed her with the sole intention of stopping her.

They finally stopped before a half-cylindrical chamber that looked like it was embedded in the wall. It would have been clear if not for the cold fog that filled its interior. Despite the fog, both Raziel and Ravager could see a tall, imposing figure inside the half-cylinder.

Ravager turned around and swung her katana at Raziel, who moved his head out of the way only to lose a few strands of silver hair. He retaliated with a swing of his psychic blade, but Ravager smacked him in the wrist, throwing off his swing. She grabbed him by the throat and threw him aside. He somersaulted and landed on his hands, flipping onto his feet and pulling several dice and marbles out of his pockets. He threw them all at Ravager with the speed and force of high-caliber bullets. Ravager only deflected them with her sword, but one of the deflected dice struck the electronic keypad that locked the chamber.

Raziel muttered a curse. _I just helped her free her father._

The chamber opened as the fog hissed out . . . and the man known to the criminal underworld as both Slade and Deathstroke stepped out. He was clad in form-fitting black Kevlar with chain mail around his abdomen and between his forearms and shoulders. Dark gray armor adorned his upper arms, shoulders, forearms, thighs, knees, shins, and feet. His face was concealed entirely by a mask that was burnt orange on the left side and pitch black on the right side, with four sinister slits for the mouth. The mask had a white lens on the left side, a lens through which a dark blue-gray eye that oozed malevolence could be seen.

"Who are you?" Slade asked Ravager.

"Your daughter," Ravager replied. "I came to set you free and so I have."

"Daughter?" Slade questioned.

"Remember a woman named Lillian Worth?" Ravager asked.

"Yes," Slade replied. "I remember her very well . . ." Realization dawned in his single eye. "You're her child, aren't you?"

"Yes," Ravager confirmed.

Slade turned his attentions to Raziel. "Who is he?"

"A Teen Titan," Ravager replied. "And here's something you might find interesting: His leader is Nightwing's daughter."

Slade did not spoke, but Raziel could just picture the chilling smirk that hid beneath the black-and-burnt orange mask. He reached into his belt and withdrew a small dark gray rod, pressing a button to extend it to a full quarterstaff.

Raziel pulled out six _senbon,_ holding three in each hand between his fingers. He closed his eyes and when he reopened them, Michael was staring through them. "Come on, Deathstroke. Let's see how well you fight after twenty years of cryogenic suspension."

Slade narrowed his one eye. "I think I'll let you go first."

Michael launched all six _senbon_ at Slade, who deflected them all by twirling his staff. Slade lunged at Michael and struck him in the side with the staff. Michael resisted the urge to cry out in pain from the still-healing wounds Raziel had endured on his way to this place. He chopped Slade's staff in half with his psychic blade.

"Impressive," Slade remarked before dropping and swinging his leg out to kick Michael's legs out from under him. Michael jumped over Slade's leg and kicked him straight in his masked head, causing the assassin-cum-mastermind to stagger backward. Ravager moved to assist him, but Slade held his hand out as a silent signal to stay back. The masked man aimed a fast punch at Michael, who moved his head out of the way and threw a punch at Slade. Slade caught the punch and slammed his elbow into Michael's chest, nearly breaking a rib or two. He spun and threw the fighter at one of the lab tables, but Michael grabbed the table and used it to stop his flight, rolling off it and landing on the floor.

Slade stalked over to him, only to get sliced up the middle by Michael's psychic blade. Fortunately for him, the wound healed very quickly.

"Clever little brat," he snarled.

Michael sprang to life and kicked Slade in the chest, spinning in the air to deliver a second kick to the gut. Unfortunately for him, Slade caught the second kick and twisted his ankle, which made him kick the mastermind with his other foot. Slade caught that, too, compelling Michael to bend forward and head-butt him, an action that hurt him more than it did the mastermind. It did have the positive effect of making Slade loosen his grip, enabling Michael to release himself.

It was this scene that the other Titans walked in on.

"Slade!" Nightstar shouted.

"What the hell?" Mercury asked. "Where the freak did he come from?"

"So you're the new Teen Titans," Slade purred. "If this boy is any indication, you should be a fine challenge."

Michael took his place beside the other Titans.

"You ok?" Bladefire asked.

"I'll heal," Michael replied stoically.

"Would you all like to come at me at once or do you want to take me one at a time?" Slade challenged.

Nightstar lashed at Slade with her energy whip, which Slade caught and used to pull her toward him. The Titan leader was barely able to turn her unwilling flight into a flying kick that knocked Slade back several paces.

"I'm impressed," Slade remarked. "But what else should I expect from the daughter of my former apprentice?"

"Is this what you wanted, Ravager?" Bladefire asked. "To bring back your father?"

"Among other things," Ravager replied nonchalantly.

Beast Girl rushed Slade as a cat-girl, using her feline dexterity to evade his blows. She slashed at him with her claws but he evaded her slashes and grabbed her wrist.

"Beast Girl, correct?" Slade sneered. "So much like your father. All instinct. No forethought." He casually tossed her aside. "Anyone else?"

Mercury gritted his teeth in rage and sped at Slade with extremely quick punches and kicks. The mastermind dodged as many as he could, but more of Mercury's blows landed than missed.

"A speedster," Slade remarked. "I haven't fought one of those since the second Flash. Or was it the third?"

Mercury landed a kick that impacted Slade squarely in his masked face, the speed and momentum of the blow causing the mask to crack deeply.

"You're going to wish you hadn't done that," the masked man hissed threateningly.

Mercury's answer was a series of punches that seemed to come from multiple angles due to the sheer speed of his movements. Finally, Slade pulled out a laser gun and blasted Mercury with it. Sadly enough, even Mercury couldn't dodge light.

Bladefire and Nightstar attacked Slade with energy knives and optic bolts, respectively. Slade dodged them rather efficiently and charged the half-alien duo. Slade delivered a whirling kick to Bladefire's exposed side and a punch to Nightstar's face.

"You know, little girl, it's not a good idea to leave so much of your body exposed, even if it _is_ a tantalizing sight," Slade remarked.

Nightstar hissed and fired an optic bolt point blank at Slade, knocking him back a considerable distance.

"Pervert," she hissed.

"Oh, am I?" Slade asked as he got back up. He leaped back into the fray as Bladefire kicked him in the chest. Slade grabbed the red-haired boy's ankle and used it as leverage to throw him. Bladefire righted himself in midair and flew at Slade again as Nightstar tackled the mastermind from the ground. Slade blocked Bladefire's aerial punch and Nightstar's high kick and pushed his arms outward to toss them both aside.

Inferno shot a stream of flame at Slade, who jumped over it and kicked him. Almost immediately afterward, the mastermind was made to evade lab tables that were lifted by dark energy and thrown at him.

"You must be Raven's brat," Slade surmised as he dodged the tables. Finally, he began leaping over them to get at Samara.

"Azarath . . . Terra . . . Infernus!" Samara chanted, summoning flame-like shadows that attacked the mastermind. The shadowy flames grabbed him and slammed him into the walls, ceiling, and floor in painfully rapid succession. By the time it was over, Slade was considerably battered.

"Vicious little wench, aren't you?" Slade remarked. "You must get that from your mother."

Samara grinned almost sinisterly, whispering, "Azarath . . . Terra . . . Oculus."

She pulled off her hood, revealing that her chakra gem had become an amethyst eye set in a hard ruby sclera. The eye glowed darkly and she stalked toward Slade, dark power writhing around her.

Slade drew his broadsword. "Come on, little girl. Give me your best shot."

"Give me yours," Samara whispered in a deadly voice.

"Samara?" Nightstar uttered.

"What the hell are you doing?" Inferno asked.

"Stopping him," Samara answered.

Suddenly, the room exploded – literally – scattering all the Titans, Slade, and Ravager.

"What the hell was that?" Beast Girl asked.

"Firebomb," Ravager replied, smirking. "One on every level of this place. The others should be triggered right about now."

More explosions could be heard above them.

"You've known where the Kokuryu's inner circle congregates for some time, haven't you?" Raziel concluded.

"Yeah," Ravager admitted unrepentantly.

"We're going to have to save these people, aren't we?" Samara concluded.

"Not if we can help it," Ravager declared.

The seven Titans gathered together. "Titans Together!" Nightstar shouted.

Slade and Ravager, swords out, attacked the Titans, who retaliated with equal ferocity. Slade and Bladefire clashed swords, metal versus energy, while Nightstar and Ravager fought whip to sword. Bladefire blocked Slade's attacks to the best of his ability, but Slade was a far more experienced swordsman than him. Nightstar and Ravager were more evenly matched; while Nightstar had the advantage of a long-range attack, Ravager was just fast enough to slip past it and get in for the strike.

Beast Girl attacked Slade as a lioness, Slade wrestling with her for a few minutes before kicking her in her underside and thus knocking her off him. She morphed into a lioness-human hybrid and charged him again, this time using her human dexterity in conjunction with her feline agility and strength.

"Now . . . this . . . I haven't seen before," he remarked, sounding almost impressed as he fought her.

Mercury and Ravager battled hand-to-hand, the speedster throwing his mind into complete overdrive. He figured that even if she could see his next moves, his own "hyper-mind" would boost his reflexes and reaction time so that she wouldn't be able to see them quickly enough to prevent them. For the most part, it did work, as he swiftly overwhelmed her. Unfortunately, he didn't anticipate a tranquilizer dart striking him in the neck.

Slade stalked over to him, having dealt with Beast Girl. "Knowing speedsters the way I do, you'll probably break that down in less than a minute. Gives me just enough time to do _this._"

"MERCURY!" Beast Girl screamed as Slade slashed the tendons in the back of her boyfriend's knees. The blue-and-white-clad speedster collapsed with blood pouring out from the backs of his knees, staining the blue of his uniform.

The Titans gaped at Slade with horror, all of them tensing to attack in their own way.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "This place is going to collapse soon enough thanks to the flames. You want to kill me . . . or save your friend?"

Beast Girl ran to Mercury and picked him up as Samara wrapped shadowy wings around all the Titans, transporting them to the nearest hospital.

* * *

"He needs help!" Nightstar shouted.

Immediately, doctors and nurses began running to them.

"What happened?" one doctor asked.

"He got slashed in the back of his knees," Raziel replied. "Tore the tendons."

The other doctors took him from Beast Girl and placed him on a stretcher.

"You can't anesthetize him," Inferno told them. "His metabolism breaks it down too fast for it to really work."

"Then we're gonna have to move faster than him if we want to save his legs," another doctor stated before they rushed him into the operating room.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"If you believe that there is a God who might be persuaded to listen, pray," Raziel replied tersely.

Silence followed, punctuated by whispers in Tamaranean and the word "X'Hal" emerging every so often in those whispers.

Hours passed before the other Titans got word from the doctors.

"So how is he?" Beast Girl asked apprehensively.

"He'll be fine," the doctor answered. "He just needs to stay off his legs for a bit. If his metabolism works the way you say it does, it won't take very long for him to finish his recovery. You can see him now if you want."

Beast Girl immediately tore into the hospital room where Mercury was, having tracked him by his scent.

"Quite . . . in a hurry, isn't she?" the doctor remarked in a slightly unnerved tone.

"Just the way she is," Samara answered.

* * *

"This sucks," Mercury groused. "I have to stay off my legs."

"You heal faster than a normal human," Bladefire interjected. "It'll take one day at the most and then you can run, run, run as fast as you like."

"You'll have to be careful about running, though; too much and you might rip out your stitches," Nightstar added.

"Crap," Mercury muttered.

"Don't worry," Beast Girl purred, literally. "All you need is some tender loving care and you'll be ready to take on the world."

Mercury grinned. "I'm looking forward to that tender loving care."

Samara tittered slightly.

"And here I thought you didn't have a sense of humor," Beast Girl remarked.

Raziel just stared out the window.

"Raziel?" Nightstar wondered.

"She's dead," Raziel muttered.

"Who?" Nightstar asked.

"Ariana," Raziel replied. "Wyndragyn killed her. That's twice now I've been helpless to stop people from dying at his hands."

Nightstar gently touched Raziel's shoulder. "Don't wallow in it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Slade and Ravager walked down a tunnel.

"The red-haired boy called you 'Ravager,'" Slade spoke. "Ironically, that's what my first child called himself before he got himself dead. What's your real name?"

"Rose," Ravager answered.

"Rose," Slade repeated. "Pretty as your name, but with enough thorns to be dangerous. Just what I'd expect in a daughter of mine."

Ravager smiled softly.

"Come now, Rose," Slade said. "We have an empire to rebuild and enemies to crush."

Ravager's smile deepened into a sadistic smirk.

* * *

End Notes: For the first time, I've ended with a few loose ends. The Kokuryu syndicate has certainly been done in thanks to Ravager, but the Brain Trust is still running around and you readers probably don't know if Azazel was telling the truth when he called Raziel his son. That'll be resolved in an "aftermath" one-shot, which brings Raziel and the Titans into a confrontation with the Brain Trust.

Some of you already knew who the "old enemy" was going to be as soon as I started hinting at it, so kudos to you for figuring it out. For those of you who were surprised, I hope it was a pleasant one.

If you were wondering about Samara's Oculus chant, here's a short explanation. Her chakra gem is positioned on what mentalists would call the third eye, the core of psychic power. When she uses that chant, she loosens the gem's bindings on her darker powers. A side effect of that, as I think I implied, is that her demon side is freer. Thus the major difference between Samara and Raven: Whereas Raven clearly hates her demonic side, Samara revels (in a restrained way, of course) in her powers. You'll see more of that in the fourth arc of this story.

If I were to envision this story being made into an animated series, it'd probably be a combination of the animation style used for Teen Titans and the animation style used for Fullmetal Alchemist. The music would run a gamut of music genres and sub-genres: metal, gothic, industrial, trip-hop, and orchestral, among others.

That's enough out of me. Feel free to review.


	14. Side Story 4: Mind Shadow

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 4: "Mind Shadow"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans doesn't belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; the former is owned by DC and the latter is owned jointly by DC and Marvel. The concept of the Brain Trust is owned by DC Comics through Batman Beyond. Everyone and everything else, unless it's something you recognize from DC, belongs to me.

Author's note: I could have written this in the context of "Mentality," but by the time I was ending it, I'd gotten into the whole "return of Slade" thing and I didn't have time to put it in. So I decided to write it in a one-shot follow-up.

Two things will happen in this story. One is that you will finally see, outside of a flashback, just what a dangerous bastard Raziel is when his Memnoch persona is out. Second is that you will find out his true lineage.

And maybe, just maybe, he'll find some romance with Nightstar.

Let's start.

* * *

Brain Trust operatives had recovered Ariana's body before any police could find it and ask questions. Granted, they held sway over captains and chiefs and commissioners throughout the country, but they couldn't take any chances.

Suffice it to say, the man known as Azazel was less than pleased. He looked at Ariana's body in the morgue section of his headquarters, his face emotionless but his eyes betraying the whirling of feelings within him.

Anger that he'd lost a valued operative, some sadness mixed with the anger. Possibly grief for a daughter he'd never had.

"Who did this?" he asked calmly.

"When we tracked her, we observed her battle with Raziel Crestmore," one of the operatives told him. "Someone else interceded in that battle, a male in a black costume with a silver mask over his face. He was the one that killed Ariana."

Azazel breathed out. "Put her away . . . and retrieve Crestmore. I want to know who killed Ariana."

"Yes, sir," the operative replied as he slid Ariana's body back into the morgue wall.

Azazel walked away, finding two of his best operatives: Bombshell and Brick. The former was a dark-haired woman who kept her hair in a somewhat messy bun and dressed in form-fitting black. The latter was a tall, muscular blond man dressed in white clothes.

"You two," he spoke. "Take a squad. Find Crestmore. Bring him to me. _Alive._"

"Yes, sir," Brick answered.

* * *

"_Why couldn't you save us, big brother?" Aimee's ghostly voice asked Raziel._

"_Why couldn't you save us, son?" Raziel's father's voice asked._

"_Why did you let me die?" the voice of the man Raziel had attempted to save when he was still part of the Kokuryu asked._

"_You could have stopped him," the voice of Ariana added._

_The voices repeated their condemnations, their words swirling around the young man like a hellish whirlpool that refused to stop._

"_I wish I could have," Raziel murmured. "I wish I could have saved you all."_

"_But you didn't," Ariana spoke. "Weakling!"_

_An invisible blade struck Raziel, leaving a bloody scratch on his cheek. More blades followed, slashing with impunity, leaving him bleeding all over._

"_YOU LEFT US TO DIE!" the voices screamed as blades and bullets attacked him again and again._

* * *

Raziel woke up with a gasp, finding his bedclothes and pillow drenched in his sweat.

"Damn it," he muttered, removing the bedclothes and pillowcases from the mattress and pillows respectively. He dumped them in the chute that transported his dirty laundry to the laundry room and came back with new bedclothes and pillowcases, remaking his bed and climbing into it. Not to his surprise, he found himself unable to return to sleep.

He got up and walked to the main room of Titans Tower, slumping on the couch and turning on the TV. He flipped through channels, finally settling on a mile-a-minute action film. He sighed bitterly and tried to focus on the meager plot of the movie in hopes of numbing himself to the agony of his nightmares.

While trying to watch the film, his senses alerted him to someone in the kitchen. He turned off the TV and went to investigate, finding a dark-haired figure in a black camisole and thong rummaging about in the refrigerator.

"Where is it?" the figure muttered. A few moments later, "There."

The lingerie-clad figure triumphantly removed a plate with a slice of cheesecake sealed in plastic wrap, undoing the wrapping and turning around to walk to the counter so she could eat her prize in peace.

"Midnight snack, Mar'i?" Raziel asked.

Mar'i turned to Raziel in surprise. "You startled me, Raziel."

"You should be on your guard then," Raziel answered with a smirk.

"What's wrong, Raziel?" Mar'i asked.

"I can't sleep," Raziel replied. "Nightmares."

"About?" Mar'i inquired.

"Just that I've failed everyone I ever cared about," Raziel responded with bitter loathing in his voice.

"You're not the only one who has to deal with that," Mar'I said. "I was only seven years old when I lost my mother, yet I couldn't help but feel that if I'd been there, she might have lived. Since I started calling myself Nightstar, I've saved so many people . . . yet I can't save everyone and that haunts me no less than the memories of the people you couldn't save haunt you."

"How do you deal with it?" Raziel asked. "With the guilt?"

"I try to remember why I'm doing this in the first place," Mar'i replied. "If I don't remember why I began all this, then it becomes a motiveless obsession."

"Does that help?" Raziel asked.

"A little," Mar'i replied, finally beginning to eat the slice of cheesecake.

"Are you going to eat that all by yourself?" Raziel questioned.

"I don't know," Mar'i answered, cleaning her fork almost sensually with her mouth and tongue before taking another piece and eating it.

Raziel groaned in irritation.

_The little minx is teasing me, isn't she?_ the psychic fighter thought.

_What do you propose we do about it?_ Uriel asked idly.

_Your mouth/As sweet as strawberries/Speaks such sensual delights/I would die/Just for a taste/Of your lips,_ Gabrielle recited from her self-written book of poems.

_As much as I am offended by non-rhyming poems and songs, I can't deny that it's actually good,_ Gabriel remarked.

_Yes, it is a perfect poem,_ Samael added, _befitting our sweet leader, don't you think?_

Gabrielle blushed. _Thank you, Lightbringer._

_I'd make a song out of it and record it, just so I can use it as mood music for when we make Mar'i ours,_ Samael remarked.

_Who needs mood music?_ Memnoch asked. _Just throw her down on the kitchen counter and –_

Samael cut him off with a raised hand. _You are such a brute, Memnoch. This is why Raziel doesn't allow you to come out very often._

_He's just a damn wimp,_ Memnoch sneered.

Raziel took a fork and used it to get a piece of cheesecake, smirking grimly at Mar'i as he ate it, his tongue cleaning off the fork. Mar'i glared at him and took another piece of cheesecake, eating it in the same borderline sensual manner as before.

It soon became a competition between them, to see who would crack first. Finally, there was one piece of cheesecake left.

Amethyst locked onto emerald, both sets of eyes staring at each other in challenge. It almost resembled the scenes in cowboy movies in which the opponents stared each other down to see who would draw their gun first. Both tensed up, their limbs coiling in anticipation of the ensuing duel.

Raziel made his move first. However, Mar'i's reflexes were just a fraction of a second quicker than his own and she took the last piece of cheesecake, devouring it in sensuous triumph.

The former Kokuryu assassin closed his eyes . . . and the Lightbringer opened them again, an alluring smirk spreading over his features.

Mar'i looked at the Lightbringer and felt herself helplessly drawn to him. He advanced upon her, the half-Tamaranean girl rooted to the spot by the searing desire pumping through her veins. He stroked her face gently, feeling the smoothness and warmth of her golden skin before kissing her firmly on the lips. Mar'i kissed him back, moaning low in her throat from the passion she felt.

_What are you doing?_ Raziel asked.

_What you have spent all this time too afraid to do,_ Samael replied simply. _Now if you'll excuse me, I have a girl to lure into my bed._

The seducer persona continued kissing Mar'i, his lips caressing hers as she sucked on his lower lip. Considering that Tamaraneans could survive in the vacuum of space, it wasn't as though Mar'i really needed to breathe. Unfortunately, the Lightbringer acknowledged to himself, he did, being human and all.

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her to catch his breath.

"That . . . was incredible," Mar'i spoke.

"Yes," Samael agreed, finding himself meaning it as he gazed intently at Mar'i's kiss-swollen mouth. "Shall we continue this elsewhere?"

"Aw, what a romantic moment," a voice spoke, the timbre low, feminine, and dangerous.

Raziel retook control and walked into the main room with Nightstar, only to confront about twenty armored soldiers led by a dark-haired woman in black and a muscular blond man in white.

"Didn't I kill you, Bombshell?" Raziel asked.

"So you thought," Bombshell replied with a deadly smirk. "You have two choices, Mr. Crestmore. One, you come with us peacefully and your fellow Titans, particularly the girl next to you, go unmolested. Two, you refuse and we take you by force, leaving your friends incapacitated in the process. What will it be?"

"I have only this to say to the Trust," Raziel declared, raising his middle finger.

"Be that way," Brick sneered before Bombshell snapped her fingers, creating purple explosions that knocked Raziel and Nightstar into a wall . . . and nearly through it.

The two Titans pulled themselves off the wall and attacked Bombshell and Brick, Nightstar with her energy whip and Raziel with his psychic blades. Bombshell retaliated with more purple detonations, although Nightstar and Raziel dodged them.

"I'll deal with these two," Brick spoke and moved with a swiftness one would not anticipate in someone so muscular. He delivered a brutal uppercut to Raziel's abdomen that pushed his ribcage inward, knocking the breath – and some blood – out of him. A fast roundhouse kick cruelly jostled Nightstar's insides. Both Titans crumpled to the floor, only to get up again.

"You two must be gluttons for punishment," Bombshell remarked as she detonated again, the purple explosions battering both Titans.

"I'm getting tired of this," Nightstar growled and swung her energy whip at Bombshell, only for it to be caught by Brick, who used it to pull her toward him. He threw Nightstar around using her whip, only for her to right herself in midair and shoot him with an optic beam. Unfortunately, the beam did virtually no damage whatsoever.

Raziel attacked Brick with his psychic blades, managing to cut his face. Unfortunately, the wound healed so rapidly that it was almost as though it was never there in the first place.

The former Kokuryu assassin gasped in horror as he realized what he was dealing with.

"You're a constant regenerator, aren't you?" he deduced.

"A constant regenerator?" Nightstar wondered.

"What if Superman weren't really impervious to harm, but healed so fast from virtually any injury possible that he might as well be impervious?" Raziel asked. "If that were the case, you'd get this guy here."

"Clever boy," Brick remarked with a chuckle. "I once survived a suicide bombing. You might want to try harder if you wish to hurt me at all."

"I'll show you harder," Raziel snarled as he picked up a sofa cushion and propelled it at Brick at the speed of a bullet, only for Brick to bat it aside. This proved to be a distraction for Nightstar, who looked Brick dead in the eye before firing an optic blast that shredded the regenerator's eyeballs.

Brick roared, but it was more out of annoyance than actual pain.

Bombshell attacked Raziel and Nightstar with more and more detonations, which the twosome dodged with ease. Nightstar weaved her purple energy into a lariat and swung it at Bombshell, ensnaring the older woman.

"Get the hell out of my house," she snarled.

"Not without Crestmore," Bombshell retorted.

Suddenly, Nightstar became aware of a blur of white charging toward her. She tensed, ready to defend herself against Brick, only for Raziel to make a brave but futile attempt at stopping his charge. Brick simply threw Raziel aside and continued rushing at Nightstar, who could see the rage in his regenerated eyes. Nightstar lashed at Brick with her whip, but the lashes didn't even slow him down, forcing her to resort to a physical attack. Fists and feet landed on vulnerable spots in the human anatomy, spots that would instantly bring down any other opponent with the strength and force with which they were being attacked.

Unfortunately, Brick wasn't any other opponent. His constant regeneration rendered him immune to her attacks. He caught her by the throat and squeezed.

"You're a very pretty girl," he remarked. "It won't take much work to make your corpse look good."

"Speaking of corpses," a voice spoke with smooth deadliness, "yours won't look that bad, either."

Brick's eyes widened as he felt a blade puncture his back and reach his heart. His grip on Nightstar's throat loosened, allowing her to extricate herself as he fell, revealing Samael the Lightbringer standing behind him with blood-covered fingers.

"Are you all right?" he asked Nightstar.

"Yeah," Nightstar replied.

Bombshell glared at the Lightbringer and Nightstar, generating more explosive purple waves. The Lightbringer cut through them, the blade moving in a serpentine path toward Bombshell's throat. Unfortunately, the psychic blade was canceled out by the armor of a soldier that stepped in front of her. Almost immediately afterward, Brick rose to his feet and struck Samael in the jaw, dislocating it. The Lightbringer simply reset his jaw and let it heal; stabbing Brick in the throat with his psychic blade and slashing while the blade was inside. The wound merely sealed itself.

The soldiers finally made their move, swarming Nightstar and Samael, the latter attempting to slice through their armor with his blades. To his shock, the blades didn't penetrate the armor at all.

"We designed the armor to be highly resistant to psychic powers," Bombshell stated, having freed herself from Nightstar's energy lariat. "And since all your powers are based on your psychic aura, you don't stand a chance."

A purple whip sliced through a soldier's armor. "Fortunately, _my_ powers aren't psychic."

Mercury stumbled down the stairs in a sleepy stupor. "Whose idea was it to throw a party in the middle of the night without waking me up?"

"Go back to sleep, boy, and you'll live," Bombshell spoke.

This snapped Mercury into total wakefulness and his amber eyes narrowed. He flew into a superhumanly swift kick that knocked Bombshell for a loop. The Brain Trust assassin retaliated with several amethyst detonations, only for Mercury to contemptuously sidestep each and every one. Five of the soldiers that had been fighting Nightstar and Raziel turned their attentions toward the tousled-haired speedster.

Mercury wound up assaulted from multiple angles by laser fire, which he could barely dodge. The soldiers kept shooting, which the young speedster knew would result in plenty of property damage.

_There goes our TV,_ he thought before immediately refocusing on staying alive. _Ok, screw defense!_

He began moving in a serpentine pattern, increasing his speed to the point where he was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. Once he had that advantage, he began attacking the soldiers. Elbow strikes and kicks delivered at approximately 200 mph brought all five down for the count.

Before he had the chance to survey his victory, a pair of large, muscular arms grabbed him from behind. Mercury looked up and stared into the ice-cold eyes of Brick. He shook at super-speed, attempting to generate enough friction to burn the regenerator's arms to the point where he'd be forced to let go. Unfortunately, Brick's constantly regenerating cells healed the damage as soon as it emerged.

"Mercury!" a voice shouted and the platinum-haired speedster ducked as a pair of claws slashed Brick's face. Brick didn't react at all, the wounds having no time to bleed before they closed. "What the hell are you?"

Mercury vibrated his molecules so quickly that he was rendered intangible, thus enabling him to pass through Brick's arms. He landed on the ground and joined his rescuer. "What took you so long, Beast Cutie?"

Beast Girl didn't bother sighing at the nickname. One, there wasn't time. Two, it was cute, in a cheesy kind of way. "I was waiting for you to see what was wrong. You didn't come back."

"Did you tell –?" Mercury started to ask, only to get his answer in the form of fireballs, energy knives, and umbrakinetic blasts striking Brick, the armored soldiers, and Bombshell. The long-range attacks did do some damage to everyone except Brick, as the knives and fireballs harmlessly dissipated when they made contact with him. The umbrakinetic blasts, on the other hand, did no damage to anyone except Bombshell.

Bladefire, Inferno, and Samara came down, all in their nightclothes just like their fellow Titans.

"You're disturbing our sleep," Bladefire growled as he generated an energy sword. "Leave."

"I don't think anyone's asked this question yet, but how did you get in here?" Inferno asked.

"My and my partner's clothes, as well as our soldiers' armors, were made with special circuitry that renders us invisible to security systems and surveillance technology," Bombshell replied.

"Oh," Mercury said.

The remaining soldiers fought like demons, their armor cushioning whatever blows landed on them.

"Well, we know these guys aren't just throwaway foot soldiers," Samara remarked after taking several well-placed strikes from a particular soldier.

"Yeah, who trained these guys, the Society of Assassins?" Mercury asked, as he pummeled Brick at super-speed. Unfortunately for him, Brick's injuries healed so quickly that the speedster might as well have not done any damage at all. "Damn it! What does it take to stop you?"

"More than what you've got," Brick answered with a smirk before catching Mercury's fists mid-punch and throwing him aside like a rag doll.

Nightstar and Bombshell battled, the Brain Trust assassin detonating again and again as the Titan leader swerved to avoid the purple explosions. Nightstar shaped her purple energy into another lariat and swung it at Bombshell, who sidestepped it.

"You tried that once before, Nightstar," she taunted. "Try something else."

"Gladly," Nightstar replied harshly before striking Bombshell with an optic blast that slammed the older woman into a wall and knocked her unconscious. She turned her attentions to the Brain Trust soldiers, shaping her violet power into razor wire that she used to slice through their armors, damaging the circuitry to the point that the suits became useless.

The seven Titans turned their attentions upon Brick, fighting him with all that they had. Bladefire attacked with a sword technique that enabled him to strike all the weak points of Brick's body simultaneously. Unfortunately, Brick didn't really have weak points due to his constant regeneration and if he did, it wouldn't make much of a difference since he healed from everything.

"Crap," Beast Girl remarked. "We're dealing with frigging Superman here."

"That brightly colored fool has nothing on me," Brick sneered.

"How is he doing this?" Mercury asked. "With the speed I was fighting him at, he should have gone down! Why isn't he going down?"

"Believe it or not, his power is partly mentally based," Raziel replied. "It's a perfect synch of body and mind. His body constantly regenerates, so he can easily recover from virtually all injuries. His brain has shut off his pain receptors, so he will not be slowed down for even an instant by an adverse physical reaction to any wounds he may sustain. It has also made him stronger and faster than the average human, not to mention that he'll never get tired."

"You'd be very correct in your estimation of me," Brick stated. "So, Titans, how does it feel to face someone who can take anything and everything you throw at him and come back for more?"

Samara telekinetically lifted the shards from the broken windows and hurled them all at Brick, the shards flying with enough force to impale any other person. Unfortunately, they simply bounced off Brick.

The muscular man sighed. "I'm getting bored."

Inferno created a giant fireball and threw it at Brick, who merely allowed himself to be engulfed by the flames. When they dissipated, the Brain Trust assassin stood unharmed, except for the rags of his shirt and his tattered pants.

"Crestmore, why do you persist in letting your friends make fools of themselves?" Brick asked. "We can keep doing this as long as you like, but you'll get tired sooner than I will. That'll make you slow, weak . . . and then I'll be able to kill you easily." He smirked at Raziel. "But I can spare your friends. All you have to do is come with me."

Raziel sighed.

_There is no other way,_ Uriel stated. _Brick's regenerative abilities render him almost completely impervious to anything any of you could do to him. If you go with him, you'll be sparing your fellow Titans the agony of death and you'll be able to find some answers, such as who was that man that called us "son."_

_You're right,_ Raziel admitted. Out loud, "Fine. I'll come with you, but you leave the other Titans alone."

"Raziel, what are you thinking?" Bladefire asked. "You don't know what they'll do to you."

"It's the logical thing to do," Raziel answered. "With his abilities, we would gain nothing from fighting him. This way, you're safe. Besides, he won't harm me. His master ordered him to bring me to him alive."

"Did he remember to add 'unharmed'?" Beast Girl asked sarcastically.

"I'll be fine," Raziel replied.

* * *

The trip to the Brain Trust's headquarters was made in silence. Brick and Bombshell sat next to each other in the black battle van, the former driving and the latter in the passenger seat. The soldiers sat in the midsection of the van on two rows of seats facing each other. Raziel was confined in the back, wearing psi-dampener cuffs and headset.

Once they arrived, Brick and Bombshell walked Raziel into what looked like a dojo. A silver-haired man dressed in loose white clothing stood with his back to them.

"Here he is," Bombshell spoke.

"Thank you for bringing him to me," Azazel said. "Now release him and leave us be."

"Why?" Brick asked.

"I have my reasons," Azazel replied. "Now do as I say."

Bombshell released Raziel from the cuffs and the headset before departing with Brick.

"What do you want with me?" Raziel asked.

"Who killed Ariana?" Azazel asked, turning to face the younger man.

"Wyndragyn," Raziel replied. "He was an assassin working for the Kokuryu yakuza syndicate. He's dead now and the Kokuryu's leadership has been decimated."

"Good work, son," Azazel spoke with a smirk.

"It wasn't me who did it," Raziel admitted.

"That doesn't matter," Azazel said. "What matters is that a prized operative of mine didn't go out in vain. Now it is time for us to talk, my son."

"Why do you call me that?" Raziel inquired.

"Because you _are_ my son," Azazel answered. "Your mother Marian had psychic talents all her life, which was why I was so fascinated with her. She could have been the most powerful female psychic of all, but she placed such a strong block on her powers that she even forgot they existed. Still, I knew a child of hers would inherit her psychic potential. I came to a conclusion that if the child was born of _two_ powerful psychics, then he or she might very well be a god among insects.

"I decided that the other psychic would be me. So on Marian's wedding night I took her husband's place and used an illusion to fool her into believing that I was him. I impregnated her that night . . . and waited for you to be born. After that, it was a matter of waiting for your powers to manifest and it was at that time that I decided to claim you.

"I've watched you for all these years, my son. You've advanced a great deal, but there is still so far you can go. You won't be able to find that kind of advancement with those foolish children who call themselves Titans. Stay with me and I will teach you all you need to know to inherit my empire."

"It's an empire of dirt," Raziel sneered. "Your Brain Trust is nothing but a gang of murderers."

"We are much greater than a simple gang," Azazel retorted. "We've toppled governments. We own governments. We own leaders of industry worldwide. We are the true captains of this planet's destiny. It is our turn to rise and take our places as such."

"I won't let you continue," Raziel declared, shifting into a battle stance.

"If you're so determined to defeat me, then you have your chance," Azazel spoke. "Right now. Strike me down if you can." He extended his right arm and a psychic sword materialized in his hand.

Raziel sheathed his index and middle fingers in sharpened psychic energy. He lunged at Azazel and slashed with his psychic blade, only to be blocked by Azazel's sword. The older psychic slashed at Raziel, who ducked under the swing and threw his leg out in a sweeping kick that would have knocked Azazel's legs out from under him if he hadn't jumped. Azazel performed a somersault in midair and came down with a brutal kick that nearly broke Raziel's neck. The former Kokuryu assassin cracked his neck back into its proper position and let his aura's healing powers do their work.

To Raziel's surprise, he was suddenly flying into a wall, propelled by some invisible force. He rose to his feet, glaring at Azazel.

"Surprised, Raziel?" Azazel asked. "That was a taste of my power, of the power _you_ could have someday . . . with my aid, of course."

"I'd never accept any aid from you," Raziel snarled, lunging at Azazel in an attempt to tackle him. Azazel, however, saw it coming and trapped Raziel in a lock, preventing him from lashing out at him. Raziel grabbed Azazel's arm and injected as much of his aura as he could into it. As Azazel's arm was too large an object for Raziel to transform into a bullet, the influx of locomotive force did the second-best thing . . . it burst Azazel's arm, leaving a bloody stump where the arm used to be.

Azazel smiled proudly at Raziel despite his wound. "I'm impressed, son. You actually hurt me." The smile turned deadly, just before he slashed Raziel with his psychic sword. Once the sword made contact, Raziel cried out in pain as his mind was assaulted along with his body. Every painful memory he had reemerged, clear as crystal and amplified a hundredfold to cause the most damage.

_The dead bodies of his family._

_The abuse from the Millers._

_The family he failed to save from Wyndragyn._

_The death of Ariana, who might have been his first love._

Once the painful psychic collage had finished, Raziel lay in a crumpled heap.

"You sad, sad boy," Azazel remarked. "So much potential, but so wasted."

To the Brain Trust leader's surprise, he heard a low, dark chuckle coming from the heap that was Raziel. He raised an eyebrow and watched as the young psychic rose to his feet.

"Raziel's" hair hung in his eyes, obscuring them from view, although the dark smirk that covered his face was very much obvious. The boy parted his hair, allowing violet eyes that glimmered dangerously to be seen.

"_Father,_ time to give the Devil his due," he spoke.

"And who might you be?" Azazel asked.

"Ah, so you're astute enough to know that I'm not exactly Raziel," the boy remarked. "You may refer to me as one of three names: Samael, Lucifer Morningstar, or the Lightbringer. Any one will do."

Azazel charged at the Morningstar with his psychic sword, intending to use it to split him in half. To his shock, the Lightbringer sidestepped the blade and struck him with the heel of his palm, sending a charge of locomotive force powerful enough to knock him into one of the walls of his dojo.

"You ought to get that looked at," Samael remarked. "Considering what you told Raziel earlier, your powers are enough like mine that your aura is probably doing its best to repair that stump that used to be your arm. Better hurry before blood loss sets in." He turned and began walking out of the dojo. "We'll finish this another time . . . and when you see Raziel again, refer to him as Cipher."

* * *

Morning came to Titans Tower and the Titans were working to repair the damage done to their home. Raziel's return only expedited the process.

"So how did you get back?" Inferno asked.

"Fought my way out," Raziel replied. "We still have unfinished business, the Brain Trust and I."

Some hours later, the Tower was back in working order and they'd gotten a new TV to replace the broken one. Mercury and Beast Girl were competing against each other in _Tournament of Darkness,_ while Inferno and Samara were each reading a book and sitting strangely close to each other. Bladefire was in the training room, practicing against a simulation of Slade made from the computer archives' data on his fighting techniques.

Where were Nightstar and Raziel?

They were in Raziel's room, where the former Kokuryu assassin had explained everything to her.

"He's not your real father," Nightstar said. "He may have contributed half his DNA to make you, but he had no part whatsoever in your upbringing. It's because of the man that raised you that you're the person you are today, not because of Azazel."

"But how much of him is in me?" Raziel asked somberly. "His powers were basically a stronger form of mine. He even said that I could possess the powers he did someday, but I'm not sure that's all I'd inherit from him."

"Powers or not, you're not Azazel," Nightstar answered. "If you were, I wouldn't do _this. . . ._" She leaned closer to him and kissed him softly on the lips.

* * *

End Notes: All right, I can see I've answered all the important questions about Raziel's origins. I might revisit the Brain Trust some time, but that time it'll be a team effort as opposed to Raziel's solo effort.

If you're wondering why I picked "Azazel" as a name for Raziel's father, it was mainly to keep the angel theme going. Azazel, in the Judeo-Christian archives (probably some apocrypha), was a fallen angel. Raziel, as stated by Ariana in the flashback some chapters back, was the angel of mysteries.

Those of you who watched that episode of Batman Beyond featuring the Brain Trust will know who Bombshell is, but you might not know Brick. I'll tell you right now, Brick is the name I gave to the white-garbed "Invulnerable Man" that appeared alongside Bombshell in that episode. I just enhanced his abilities somewhat, as I felt that feeling no pain didn't automatically make someone invulnerable and I wanted to give a somewhat plausible explanation as to how he got that way.

If you think clothing that makes someone invisible to surveillance and security systems is too farfetched, look at the modern Mr. Terrific from the Justice Society; his clothes have the same function.

I have a few more one-shots to do and then it'll be time for Arc 3 of this story. For those of you who wanted more Mercury, you'll get it . . . and then some.

That's enough out of me. Time to let me know what you think.


	15. Side Story 5: Speed Shifter

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 5: "Speed Shifter"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; the former is the property of DC Comics and the latter is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everyone and everything else, unless you recognize them from DC Comics, is mine.

Author's note: It's been a while coming. _Meet the Parents,_ Future Storm style. I realize that Mercury and Beast Girl already knew each other's parents, but they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend at the time. Now that they are, relations with each other's parents might just be that little bit harder. Not to mention that a few irate villains might make an appearance.

Now let's get this story out on the road.

* * *

It was Friday night and Peter Allen, alias Mercury, was out on patrol. He could be doing what other teenagers did on Friday nights, which was go out and have a good time, but he wasn't other teenagers.

He was the fastest boy alive . . . although that was a statement Adam and Barry might want to challenge.

Mercury sped by a chop shop . . . and doubled back, vibrating through the door.

"Yo!" he shouted. "Are those your cars?"

"They are," one of the guys there replied.

"How much did you have to spend to get them?" Mercury asked conversationally.

"What's it to you, kid?" another guy asked.

"Ok, because it looks like you're cutting them up so you can sell the parts," Mercury commented. "Do those cars even really belong to you?"

That question resulted in all seven guys pointing Uzis at him.

"Aw, come on," Mercury said. "You think that's gonna hurt me?"

"Depends if you can dodge automatic gunfire," the leader replied. "And I'm betting you're not as fast as you claim."

"See for yourselves," Mercury challenged. "Pull the trigger."

"Your ass," the leader remarked nonchalantly before unleashing a salvo of automatic gunfire on the platinum-haired boy, his fellow car thieves following suit. Mercury threw himself into overdrive, ducking and weaving between bullets at speeds even greater than those of the bullets flying at him. He moved all over the chop shop, a blue-and-white blur to the thieves as they shot at him. Once they were out of bullets, he attacked.

A hundred-mile punch to the gut knocked one car thief unconscious, while a lightning-fast snap kick propelled another into one of the stolen cars and left him too stunned to do much. One of the remaining five had had enough time to reload his gun and was now shooting at the Azure Blur, who ducked and weaved between bullets while charging at him, kicking the gun out of his hand and socking him in the gut too fast for him to do anything about it except pass out.

He still had to dodge bullets from the other four, although he took the time to steal the bullets' speed so that they clattered harmlessly to the ground. A swift roundhouse kick took care of one thief, while the other three were disabled by simple chops to the neck or punches to the gut, all delivered too quickly for the thieves to react in time.

Mercury grinned and pulled out his communicator, flipping it open and contacting the police. "Hey, got a bunch of car thieves that need arresting." He transmitted the coordinates to them and sped away from the chop shop.

He continued racing around the city, stopping random crimes here and there. At a certain point, he thought to himself, _All right, I've stopped enough crime. Time for a little snog with my cute kitty cat._

With that firmly in mind, he sped to where he knew Beast Girl would be patrolling. He moved quickly and silently, not making the slightest breeze. As he advanced, he saw a purse snatcher running as though Cerberus was after him. A quick look at the night sky revealed the reason for his frantic running to the speedster.

Mercury watched with no small amount of glee as a green harpy descended upon the purse snatcher, grabbing him with her talons and carrying him away. He followed the harpy, who dropped the purse snatcher roughly on a nearby rooftop. As silent as a ghost, the Azure Blur sped up the façade of the building and stopped on the rooftop.

"You might want to give back that purse," the harpy remarked casually.

"W-why should I?" the purse snatcher stammered, trying his hardest not to let his fear show and failing miserably.

"It's a long way to the bottom," the harpy commented in that same casual tone. "I could catch you if you tripped, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort."

"Ok, ok!" the purse snatcher yelled. "I'll give the lady back her purse! Just get me down from here!"

"I'm so glad you asked," the harpy said, flying toward the purse snatcher. She grabbed him by her talons and flew off the rooftop with him. Again, Mercury followed, still maintaining his quietly swift motions. The harpy dropped the purse snatcher by the woman he had stolen it from and he gave it back to her before running away in terror. Once the grateful woman had departed, Mercury spoke.

"I bet he'll never steal another purse in this city again."

"Following me, Mercury?" the harpy asked, her wings and talons melting into human limbs. She turned around and grinned at him. "So what brings you here?"

"Patrol went by quick," Mercury replied. "Criminals know better than to crawl out of their holes when I'm around."

Beast Girl giggled at her boyfriend's cockiness.

"How'd you follow me without me noticing?"

"Great thing about being a ninja: we're really good at being quiet."

Again, Beast Girl giggled.

"How about we take a little time off patrol?" the Shinobi of Speed suggested.

"Mercury, you know Nightstar and Bladefire are gonna be mad if we cut out of patrol," Beast Girl answered.

"It won't take long," Mercury persisted. "Just a few minutes of making out." He smiled his most charming smile, the special smile he saved just for his ladylove.

Beast Girl melted. "Fine, but just a few minutes."

The next thing the young changeling-slash-geomancer knew, she was pinned to a wall and being passionately kissed and caressed by a very amorous platinum-haired speedster. With a virtual whirlwind of romantic intensity that was Mercury, there was only thing to do about it.

Give in.

Beast Girl wrapped her arms around Mercury's neck and kissed him back with equal fervor, one of her fangs accidentally cutting his lip. When this had first happened, she'd apologized very profusely until Mercury (with a blush on his face) admitted that he kind of liked that little flash of pain. Since then, accidentally cutting his lip with her fang had tended to spice up their make-out sessions quite a bit, such as this particular moment.

Beast Girl opened her eyes for a brief moment, only to find someone pointing a digital camera at her and Mercury. She pushed Mercury away and glared at the person.

"You might want to delete those pictures," she growled, her voice resembling an angry feline.

The person decided to flee. However, she didn't get very far. After all, most people couldn't hope to evade someone who ran at hypersonic speeds on a normal basis.

"I think it'd be best if you deleted those pics," Mercury suggested gently. "Or at least keep them for your personal use and not sell them to some tabloid." He paused. "Oh, you _were_ going to sell those pictures of us to a tabloid, weren't you?"

The girl looked somewhat guilt-ridden. Mercury breezed over to her and gently took the camera from her, subsequently erasing the pictures of him and Beast Girl making out.

"I got an idea," he said. "Beast Girl and I will pose for your pictures and you can keep them to make some kind of photo album."

"That sounds nice," the girl said.

"Does that sound nice, Beast Girl?" Mercury asked.

"Sure," Beast Girl replied.

Beast Girl and Mercury posed for five pictures. One picture had them making silly faces for the camera. Another picture had them draped over each other romantically. A third picture had Beast Girl nuzzling Mercury in cat-girl form. A fourth picture had Mercury tickling Beast Girl. The final picture had the couple gently embracing each other.

"Awesome," the girl said. "My friends won't believe this!"

"Heh, who knows?" Mercury remarked with a shrug. "By the way, it's not safe for you to be roaming about at this hour. You might wanna go home and get some shut-eye."

"Sure," the girl answered and hurried down the street, fueled by the excitement of her meeting with the two Titans.

Mercury vibrated his molecules, picking up the police radio. "_Chasing stolen vehicle, blue Dodge sedan, license plate number 264-95S. All units respond."_

"Carjacking," he said. He sped away, Beast Girl following in the air. Soon enough, he found the stolen sedan as the quarry in a police car chase. He ran up to the driver's door and shouted, "Pull over!"

"And why should I?" the carjacker asked.

"The police will go easier on you?" Mercury offered.

"Nice try," the carjacker shot back.

Mercury vibrated his hand through the car window and grabbed the steering wheel, forcing the carjacker to pull over while simultaneously draining the car's speed. The police cars pursuing the carjacker pulled over as well, their drivers exiting and walking over to him.

"Thanks, Mercury," one of the officers said. "We'll take it from here."

"Sure," Mercury replied. "Glad to be of service." He zoomed away.

* * *

The next day, Mercury was dressed in normal clothes, specifically a blue silk button-up shirt and dark khaki slacks with black semiformal shoes. He'd taken care to comb his hair, making sure that there wasn't a single lock out of place.

Why was he taking all this care to look good? One might say that it was because of Beast Girl and that would only be partly correct. The truth was that he and Beast Girl were going to visit Beast Girl's parents. This scared Mercury a bit. Sure, Terra was just about the sweetest woman in the world, if not just a tad unladylike, and Changeling wasn't nearly as dead serious as the original Nightwing. The problem was that Changeling had a serious protective streak when it came to Beast Girl that bordered on vicious.

Not that Mercury had cause to blame him, considering what had happened to her in her young life. Still, it made him rather wary of the older shape-shifter.

In her room, Beast Girl had dressed in a cream-colored tank top with blue Capri pants and white tennis shoes. She held her blonde hair in a ponytail with the aid of a scrunchie and went to see Mercury.

"Ready to go?" he asked her.

"Just remember, my parents won't bite," Beast Girl replied. "Besides, they've known you for years."

"Yeah, years I spent being that 'sweet yet hyperactive boy who happens to be your best friend,'" Mercury rejoined. "Now that I've graduated to boyfriend status, they're gonna be wary of me. That's how parents are."

"You'll be fine," Beast Girl said.

Mercury grinned and swept Beast Girl up in his arms bridal-style. "Ready for a ride on the Mercury Express?"

"Let's go," Beast Girl replied.

* * *

The next thing Beast Girl knew, the world was accelerating so quickly that it blurred. If it wasn't for the fact that she knew Mercury's perception sped up when he did, she'd be worried that they'd crash into something. Fortunately, they made it to her parents' house safe and sound.

Mercury swallowed briefly before knocking on the door. The person who answered was Tara Markov-Logan, once known as Terra, dressed in a blouse and jeans.

"Hey," she greeted her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. "What's the occasion?"

"We wanted to formalize our relationship," Beast Girl replied. "And what better way to do that than to have Peter meet you and Dad?"

"I'll get your dad," Tara said. She turned to the stairway and shouted, "Gar! Terri wants to introduce her boyfriend to us!"

Soon enough, Gar Logan, formerly Changeling, came down to greet Beast Girl and Mercury. "Come on in. _Mi casa es su casa._"

Beast Girl and Mercury entered the house and sat on the love seat, while Tara and Gar took the sofa.

"Love seat," Gar remarked. "Interesting choice."

Mercury blushed. "We . . . didn't mean anything by it."

Gar chuckled. "Hey, I'm just kidding. No need to panic."

"Sorry," Mercury said. "I'm kinda nervous."

"No sweat, man," Gar said. "I was the same way when I met Tara's older brother. I gotta say, Brion is one overprotective guy."

"He's just looking out for me, Gar," Tara responded.

"I know, but he has a scary way of doing it," Gar insisted.

"So what are we going to do today?" Beast Girl asked.

"I'm currently on sabbatical from writing screenplays, so I was thinking we could go to the zoo," Gar replied.

"Sounds great," Tara said.

* * *

The four took Gar's convertible to the zoo, with Tara sitting next to Gar and Beast Girl and Mercury sitting in the backseat. Mercury kept a considerable distance from Beast Girl, wary of incurring Gar's wrath by attempting to make out with her while in the same car as him. It didn't help that Beast Girl kept wiggling so that she was as close to him as she could reasonably get.

Tara looked in the rearview mirror and winked mischievously at Mercury, which made him blush and blanch simultaneously, if such a thing was possible.

When they reached the zoo, the four piled out of the car and went to see the various animals.

"We ought to set them free," Mercury spoke idly.

"Who?" Tara asked.

"The tigers," Mercury replied. "They must hate being cooped up in there."

"As sad as it is, at least they're safe here," Gar remarked. "If they were out in the wild, the hunters would pick them off."

"Yeah, you've got a point," Mercury conceded. "Beautiful creatures, aren't they?"

"Yeah," Beast Girl agreed.

"But you're the most beautiful cat I've ever known," Mercury whispered in her ear, making her blush. "Catwoman's got nothing on you."

"Awww, isn't that sweet?" Tara remarked. "Reminds me of you and me when we were dating."

"Yeah," Gar admitted, "although I wonder what he just whispered in her ear."

"It was obviously something very romantic," Tara said.

That was pretty much how the rest of the trip to the zoo went. Beast Girl and Mercury whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears and Tara and Gar remarked at how "sweet" they were. In between all that saccharine teen romance, Gar recited facts about the various animals they saw.

At one point, Gar pulled Mercury aside.

"Uh, what did you want to talk to me about, Mr. Logan?" Mercury asked.

"Please, call me Gar," Gar answered, "and I'd like to talk to you about Terri. Do you love her?"

"She owns my heart completely," Mercury replied.

"Simple yes or no question," Gar insisted. "Do. You. Love. Her?"

"Yes. I. Love. Her," Mercury replied in much the same way Gar had questioned him.

"Don't get sassy with me," Gar said. "Now, I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt. You and Terri were friends long before you started making out on patrols, so I'm inclined to trust you. Problem is that she already got hurt bad by someone she trusted once and I'm not letting that happen again. So here's the deal: You break Terri's heart and even you won't be able to run far enough or fast enough to escape me. Got it?"

"Uh-huh," Mercury answered, all temerity gone from his voice and demeanor.

Gar suddenly broke out into a smile. "Now let's go rejoin the ladies, shall we?"

Gar and Mercury came back to Tara and Beast Girl, the former noticing Mercury's uneasy expression. The geomancer pulled Gar aside, leaving their daughter and her boyfriend by themselves.

"Did you try to intimidate him?" Tara asked.

"Just keeping him honest," Gar replied.

"It could backfire," Tara suggested. "You might have ended up making him so scared that he'll never touch Terri again."

"He'll get over it," Gar replied. "And if he loves her as much as I think he does, then a little threat from me isn't going to stop him from being with her. Besides, my fastest land animal only goes at 60 to 65 miles per hour. I'd never be able to catch up with him, anyway."

Tara kissed him softly on the cheek. "Sure. By the way, I'm sure Terri and Peter are missing us."

"Not . . . really," Gar contradicted, spotting Beast Girl and Mercury sharing a kiss by the gorilla cage.

"Now, Gar, there's no reason to hurt him," Tara remarked. Then with a mischievous smirk, she added, "Unless he's a bad kisser."

Gar snickered, remembering the years he spent refining his kissing technique with Tara.

"That was fun," Mercury remarked as Gar drove them back to the Logan residence.

"Yeah," Beast Girl agreed. She leaned over to whisper in his ear, "Did my dad scare you?"

"Uh, yeah," Mercury replied.

Beast Girl ruffled his platinum hair. "Silly. My dad wouldn't harm a fly."

"If you say so," Mercury mumbled warily.

* * *

At the Logan residence, the foursome had a vegetarian dinner. To his surprise, Mercury found himself liking it.

"If vegetarianism is this good, then I'm swearing off meat forever!" he declared.

"I have a convert!" Gar shouted. "Peter Maxwell Allen, I hereby declare you a knight of the tofu crown."

Beast Girl and Tara laughed at the two's antics.

"So, Terri, how's life with the Titans?" Gar asked.

"It's good," Terri replied. "School's a pain, though. Hate algebra. Mercury makes it all better, though."

"I'm sure he does," Gar remarked. "Just don't get up to anything when you're supposed to be getting educated."

"My fans are scary," Mercury said.

"What happened?" Tara asked.

"One day we came to school and we were practically attacked by our fans," Mercury replied. "They mobbed us for autographs, although they wanted us to sign something other than paper." He shuddered.

"Guys look at me funny," Terri added.

"It's the ears," Gar said. "You inherited my ears and ladies _love_ my ears."

"Uh-huh," Peter muttered with a blush. "I suppose it'd be a bad time to say that I enjoy nibbling Terri's ears."

"You went that far with her," Gar remarked quizzically.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" Peter mumbled abashedly, his amber eyes landing on a blushing Terri.

"Well, you and I have something in common," Tara remarked, "because I just love nibbling Gar's ears." To emphasize this, she reached over and rubbed Gar's elfin ears teasingly.

"Ah, Tara . . . not in front of the kids," Gar mumbled.

"Point is, Petey, we're not gonna hurt you," Tara said. "You and Terri have a beautiful thing going and we trust you not to get in over your heads."

"What she said," Gar agreed. "Wait, Terri. Did you tell him yet?"

"Tell him about?" Terri asked.

Gar looked at her once and she instantly remembered what he was referring to.

"I already know," Peter said. "And I don't care. Honestly, I find her even more beautiful in her real form."

"You're just saying that because you have a fetish for cat-girls," Terri remarked snidely.

"True, but that's not my only reason," Peter answered.

* * *

The next day, Peter dressed himself in a gray button-up shirt with a darker gray dragon print on the left side, black jeans, and a pair of shoes that looked like a cross between sneakers and boots. He exited his room and went to Terri's room. Not thinking to knock first, he found her in just her underwear.

"Peter!" Terri exclaimed in exasperated embarrassment. "Knock first!"

"Sorry!" the platinum-haired speedster said before vibrating through her door and back out into the hallway.

A few minutes later, Terri came out dressed in a cream-colored blouse and jean skirt over black leggings, leaving her hair loose this time.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Stunning," Peter replied. He took Terri's hand and held her in his arms like a groom would hold his bride. "Let's go."

* * *

Within mere minutes, he and Terri were in Keystone City and on their way to his parents' house. They would have gotten there sooner, but Peter kept pausing to greet various people he knew there. Hell, he even stopped to help a police officer repair his car, finishing in less than half a minute.

Despite all these self-imposed interruptions, the couple did make it to the Allen residence.

"Hey, Dad," Peter greeted.

Bart Allen pushed his mop of brown hair out of the way of his eyes, which were as amber as his son's, and grinned. "Hey, Pete."

Father and son hugged each other, the older male releasing the younger from his embrace after a few minutes to ruffle his hair.

"So, finally saw fit to introduce your girlfriend to us, huh?" Bart remarked in mock anger, only to break down laughing. Peter laughed with him, despite not really getting the joke. "Well, your mom's gonna be happy to see you again."

Carol Allen came down the stairs with a bright smile on her face. "Hi, Peter, Terri." She hugged her son and ruffled his hair as his father had done earlier.

Peter chuckled. "Between you two, my hair is going to be utterly unrecognizable."

"So, anybody feel like visiting the water park?" Bart asked.

"I do! I do!" Peter exclaimed with glee.

"Sure," Bart said.

"Can Uncle Max come with us?" Peter asked.

"Ok, we just have to –" Bart replied, only to be cut off by a gentle gust of wind that stopped to reveal Max Crandall, alias the two-century-old speedster Max Mercury.

"Ah, I was looking for you, Peter," the eldest of the speedsters said with a slight smile.

"Uncle Max!" Peter greeted, hugging his onetime mentor fiercely.

Technically, Max wasn't Peter's uncle, but he was Bart's first real mentor and had taken the same role with Peter when he'd advanced into the future and found his protégé married and with a super-speedy child of his own. Peter loved Max much like a nephew would love his uncle and admired him to the point where he served as the inspiration for his heroic identity and garb.

"Sure," he said. "I'll come with you."

* * *

The water park was bustling with activity, children frolicking in the water and parents and older siblings attempting to watch over them while frolicking as well. The Allen family, along with Terri and Max, quickly waded into the scene.

Peter grabbed Terri's hand and ran (at athletic speed) toward the Torpedo, a tubular water slide that was so tall and steep that it allowed a high degree of acceleration toward the large pool beneath, hence the name. The two got on the slide together, Terri nestling herself in Peter's arms as the speedy boy held her close to him.

"Ready?" he asked softly yet excitedly.

"Yeah," she replied.

With a gentle push, the two went down the slide at a speed that Peter gauged to be about fifty mph. He didn't know for sure; he was used to much higher speeds and he wasn't so good a mathematician.

Oh, well. Screw math. He was having fun . . . and so was Terri, and that was all that mattered to him at this moment.

The two landed in the ocean-sized pool with a merry laugh, soon engaging each other in splash warfare.

Meanwhile, Bart had persuaded Carol and Max to accompany him into the pool, where they soon engaged in their own antics. Even Max wasn't immune to Bart's extremely high spirits. Granted, his former protégé had grown up immensely in the years he'd been absent, but every now and again that same childlike exuberance emerged.

Soon enough, the three adults had run into Peter and Terri.

"Having fun, you two?" Bart asked, only to be splashed by a mini-wave from Peter, who laughed like he'd stumbled upon the world's biggest joke. The elder speedster just smirked before generating a stronger mini-wave that drenched his son even more than he already was.

"Be careful, you two," Carol advised. "You don't want to cause a tropical disaster, do you?"

"She does have a point," Max added.

Bart and Peter looked each other dead in the eye . . . and generated an even stronger mini-wave together, striking both Carol and Max. Neither was that happy with the two, who just hit them with another mini-wave as a way of saying, "What are you gonna do about it, huh?"

Carol, hearing the unspoken challenge, retaliated with as big a splash as she could make without speed powers. Still, it got the two good.

"You know what this means, don't you, dear?" Bart asked with a mock-sinister expression.

"Yeah," Carol replied.

"I'll win," Bart stated.

"You'll try," Carol retorted playfully.

At this point, Peter reached the limits of his not-so-remarkable patience and shouted, "War!"

And so it began.

* * *

Hours later, the five were drying off and putting their clothes on over their swimsuits. Bart, Peter, and Max were drying off and changing in the men's changing stalls, while Carol and Terri were doing the same thing in the women's stalls.

"So, did you have fun today?" Carol asked.

"Yeah," Terri replied.

"He's really a very sweet boy," Carol remarked. "A bit too hyper for his own good and probably an incessant flirt, but a very sweet boy. I hope you two stay together for a very long time. He loves you a lot. It shows in his voice whenever he talks about you. It'd be really upsetting for him if something happened to ruin things between you and I'd have to do something about that, wouldn't I? So . . . make him happy, Terri."

"I will," Terri answered, catching the hidden threat in the older woman's voice.

"Good to hear," Carol said warmly.

* * *

Later on, Peter and Terri had returned to Titans Tower.

"So how'd you like meeting my parents?" Peter asked.

"They're great people," Terri replied. "And your uncle is so cool."

"I know," Peter said with a wide grin. "He's the best uncle a guy could ask for."

"How'd you like meeting my parents?" Terri asked.

"They're cool," Peter replied. "They didn't freak out when I mentioned that thing about me liking to nibble on your ears."

Terri blushed, but summoned up the courage to ask, "Would you like to nibble on my ears now?"

"Would I ever," Peter replied, taking the opportunity to do exactly that.

* * *

End Notes: Well, that's it. Originally, I intended to have some villains show up, either Flash enemy Gorilla Grodd (whom you've probably seen if you watch the latest episodes of Justice League Unlimited) or several members of the Brotherhood of Evil (particularly Gemini). Ultimately, I decided it was a stupid idea to insert a superhero/villain fight when the story should largely be a romance-comedy, or at least try to be. It's up to you to decide whether it was actually funny at all or not. Still, I'd like to know what you think, so please review. 


	16. Side Story 6: Rose Blade

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 6: "Rose Blade"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it is owned by DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Ravager and Slade (Deathstroke) do not belong to me, either, and neither does anyone else you might recognize from the comics or any other form of DC-related media.

Author's note: Has anyone wondered just what started The Ravager on her path of darkness? If so, hang on, because you will finally see what made Rose Wilson the woman she is today. Of course, to keep your attention, I'll intersperse the story of Rose's origin with a story set in the present. Note that the present portions will be typed in normal font and the past portions will be in italics.

Are you ready to begin?

* * *

A slim katana cut through the air as it attempted to slice its target, who moved out of the way and retaliated with a swing of his broadsword. The katana-wielder easily dodged the broadsword and swung her katana at her opponent, who once again moved out of the way of the swing. The swordsman thrust his blade at her, only for her to bend backwards to avoid the broadsword. She turned her bend into a back-flip and sliced her opponent in his chest, cutting through the Kevlar-reinforced leather to reach the more vulnerable flesh.

The swordsman's wound bled only slightly before it healed and he retaliated with a fierce swing at her. She jumped over the swing and landed on his blade, balancing herself on it as though it were a beam. She proceeded to flip off the blade and strike her opponent in the head with a kick. The outcome, rather, was that he grabbed her by her ankle and swung her in an arc, starting low and finishing by releasing her while she was high in the air, letting her fly at the gears of his lair. The katana-wielder performed a triple somersault and uncurled, landing gracefully on the floor.

"That's enough for today, Rose," the swordsman spoke, sheathing his sword behind his back. He reached up and removed his mask, revealing the face of a man whose blond hair had gone nearly completely white and a single blue-gray eye, the other covered by an eye-patch. Despite his apparent age, he was still extremely fit due to both intense physical exercise and his own enhanced physical skills.

Rose reached up and removed her mask, revealing a girl of mixed Asian and European features. Her single eye was blue, the other covered by an eye-patch much like her father's but on the opposite side, and her hair was long and silvery white.

The two were dressed nearly identically to each other, both wearing Kevlar-reinforced black leather with chain mail and armor plating, as well as one-eyed masks that were orange on one side and black on the other. The differences lay primarily in design. The swordsman wore his chain mail between his shoulders and forearms and around his abdomen and his armor plating on his upper arms, shoulders, forearms, legs, and feet. His mask was orange on the left side, the side where his remaining eye was, and the other side was completely black. In contrast, Rose wore her chain mail on her shoulders and her armor plating on her knees, shins, and feet. Her mask was the reverse of the swordsman's, orange on the right side where her remaining eye was and completely black on the left side. Unlike her trainer's mask, hers stopped at her nose, leaving her rosy lips exposed.

"You did very well today, Rose," the swordsman said. "Whoever trained you was very thorough."

Rose bowed. "Thank you, Father."

Slade smiled. "We have another job." He walked up to a very large computer monitor and hit a few keys on the keyboard in rapid succession, summoning the image of a chrome-and-reinforced steel spire. "Grayson Enterprises has been working on a way to use nanotechnology in medicine. Their theory is that they can use the self-repairing qualities of nanotech to assist damaged immune systems."

"You mean it could be a cure for AIDS," Rose deduced.

"Yes, which has certainly gotten the Religious Right up in arms," Slade remarked snidely. "Of course, Grayson's little nanotech solution has military applications, ones that they refuse to allow because 'they're not in the business of killing people.'"

"Are we going to steal it?" Rose asked.

"Yes and sell it to the highest bidder," Slade replied. He picked up his mask and put it on again.

_

* * *

Rose was ten years old and living in Thailand. Her mother, Lillian Worth, was the princess of a clan in the Orient but had relocated in the wake of a war in her homeland. As a clan princess, Lillian was considerably wealthy and a portion of that wealth went into Rose's physical training._

_At that tender age, Rose could already use a sword with some skill, though her trainers used blunt wooden swords instead of sharp metal swords. In addition, she was capable of fighting hand-to-hand at an intermediate level. However, what supplemented her skill was her unusual strength and reflexes. She was definitely faster and more physically powerful than a child of her age and size, but how much so her trainers didn't quite know._

_In addition, Rose didn't really look like the other children. Her hair was a snowy white color compared to the other children's black locks and her eyes were blue while the other children had dark brown eyes. This led to the question that she asked her mother almost incessantly._

"_Mother, who is my father?" she asked._

"_You don't have one," Lillian replied simply._

"_How do I not have a father?" Rose asked. "It's not as though you impregnated yourself."_

"_It doesn't matter," Lillian answered. "You have me and the rest of your family and that is all you need." She kissed her daughter on her forehead gently. "Don't trouble yourself anymore with this."_

_The next day, Rose was playing with the neighborhood boys. Lillian didn't approve of this, but Rose was stubborn and she preferred the boys to the girls._

"_Girls are too prissy," she'd stated simply before going off to play with the boys._

_At first, the boys hadn't wanted to involve a girl in their games, thinking she'd slow them down. Rose proved them very much wrong when she beat them all with ridiculous ease and from then on they let her play with them._

_They had been wrestling on that day, as they did on many others, when they spotted what looked like soldiers. They were dressed in olive drab with helmets protecting their heads and body armor over their torsos and joints._

"_Who are they?" Jian asked._

"_They look like soldiers," Su replied._

_Rose pressed her hand to her head as a vision intruded upon her mind: a vision of the soldiers killing everyone in the neighborhood with savage abandon. When it was over, she shivered._

"_We have to get out of here," she said._

"_Why?" Li asked._

"_Because they'll kill us all if we don't," Rose answered fearfully._

* * *

Slade and Rose, now Deathstroke and the Ravager, traveled to Grayson Enterprises' Jump City headquarters by way of a sleek two-person stealth jet. Deathstroke stopped the jet over the rooftop of Grayson Enterprises and jumped out of it, Ravager following. The two landed agilely on the rooftop and Deathstroke pulled what looked like a laser pointer out of his belt. He pressed a button on the device and it revealed a laser cutter that neatly sliced off one of the panels of the skylight.

The two masked warriors slipped into the corporate headquarters and began prowling. They'd memorized the layout of the building on the way over and they both had virtual photographic memories, so this mission should have been a snap.

As it turned out, it wasn't.

When the father-daughter duo reached the lab where the nanotech solution was kept, they found someone else there.

"If it isn't the infamous Deathstroke," he remarked with a gravelly rasp. "Back from the dead." He looked at Ravager. "And your little girl, too."

"Who the hell are you?" Ravager asked.

"I suppose it's only fair that I introduce myself," the man replied. "Call me Manslayer."

Manslayer wore what looked like Kevlar-reinforced wine-red-and-black leather. The top was wine red with black sides and shoulders and the pants and boots were completely black. His face was covered by a red mask that had a vaguely Y-shaped black front. A pair of swords crossed on his back in sheaths while a pair of guns was strapped to his thighs. A belt of collapsible boomerangs wrapped around his waist as the final touch on his uniform.

"Manslayer, huh?" Deathstroke remarked. "A rather ambitious name to refer to yourself by."

"No more ambitious than Deathstroke the Terminator," Manslayer retorted. "Or the Ravager."

"Doesn't matter," Deathstroke answered, drawing his broadsword. "You're a dead man, anyway."

"Says you, Terminator," Manslayer retorted, drawing one of his katana and one of his guns.

The Ravager drew her katana.

"Oh, good, we all have weapons out now," she remarked. "But who's gonna be the first to let their trigger finger get the better of them?"

"Good question," Deathstroke replied. "You see, you could open fire on either of us, but I bet our reflexes are good enough to avoid the bullets. You could attack us with your sword, but I bet either of us have greater skill with the blade than you."

"You think so . . . old man?" Manslayer challenged.

"Enough talk," Deathstroke answered. He lunged at Manslayer, who immediately blocked with his own sword while opening fire on the Ravager, who easily avoided the salvo of bullets. She withdrew three kunai from her belt and threw them at Manslayer, who dodged them all while still fighting her father.

"Not bad," Manslayer remarked, jumping away from Deathstroke's second charge and sheathing his blade. Deathstroke slashed at him again, but Manslayer grabbed his wrist and used his grip to perform a cartwheel over his head, maintaining his precarious position long enough to shoot at Ravager again. Ravager dodged his gunfire and made a move to attack him, only to be stopped by Deathstroke.

"The solution," the masked mastermind said. "That is what matters, Ravager. Get it."

Ravager dutifully went for the nanotech solution, which was a small canister of silvery liquid. This caused Manslayer to halt his battle with Deathstroke and block his daughter with a boomerang, which a cut on her exposed cheek told her was razor-sharp. The cut sealed itself within moments, though.

"You're not getting your hands on that," Manslayer said.

"So you say," Ravager retorted, swinging her katana at the red-and-black-garbed fighter. Manslayer dodged the swing and holstered his gun, replacing it with a katana and retaliating with a swing of his own, which Ravager evaded. She dropped and swept her leg out in an attempt to trip him, but he jumped over her leg and moved to kick her in the face. However, Ravager's move hadn't stopped with her low kick; she'd continued her sweep in an upward motion until her foot solidly planted itself in Manslayer's stomach.

"You _are_ good," Manslayer remarked, staggered by the force of her kick.

Ravager pressed her advantage, attacking with a combination of sword strikes and kicks. Manslayer blocked as many as he could and counterattacked whenever possible, but Ravager saw his moves coming before he even made them, as per her sixth sense. The two combatants separated as Deathstroke made his way toward the solution, only for Manslayer to see this and throw another razor-edged boomerang at him. The mastermind-slash-assassin whirled and caught the boomerang before throwing it right back at Manslayer, who moved his head out of the way.

Deathstroke picked up the canister and slipped it into a pouch on his utility belt.

"We have it, Ravager," he said. "Let's go."

Ravager broke away from her fight with Manslayer and went to her father's side.

"We're not finished yet," Manslayer snarled, both swords out this time.

"You really want to die, don't you?" Deathstroke remarked.

* * *

"_Mother!"_ _Rose screamed._

_She'd managed to give the soldiers the slip and return to her home, only to find more soldiers there. Two were holding Lillian down while a third was settled between her legs, committing the most horrific crime a man could commit against a woman. The others stood guard over the three soldiers committing the deed and Lillian._

"_Mother!"_ _Rose screamed. She ran at the guarding soldiers, yelling, "Get the hell away from my mother!"_

_Rose tackled one soldier, her momentum enabling her to knock him over. She began beating the soldier, screaming, "Stop hurting my mother!"_

_Another soldier grabbed Rose and pulled her off the soldier she was beating. The soldier she was beating joined the second soldier in restraining Rose._

"_Let me go!" Rose screamed. "Let me go! Stop hurting my mother!"_

_Rose thrashed hard, but the soldiers' grip remained firm, never loosening quite enough to allow her to free herself. She was helpless to watch as the other soldiers took their turns with Lillian before one of them finally shot her in the head._

"_NOOOOO!"_ _Rose screamed, tears streaming down her face at the sight of her dead and violated mother._

* * *

"My boss sent me to do a job," Manslayer stated. "And I'm gonna do it."

Deathstroke and Ravager pointed their blades at Manslayer, all three poised for an attack. Manslayer attacked the duo, who each blocked a sword. Manslayer pushed back against them, but his strength wasn't quite up to par with his opponents'. He bent his legs and swung them upward, kicking Deathstroke in the sternum and Ravager below her bosom. The kick didn't really knock either down, but it startled them both enough to allow him to break free and press his attack, slashing and kicking both.

Manslayer sheathed his swords and withdrew two boomerangs from his belt, folding them out to their full size and throwing them at the father-daughter duo. Deathstroke and Ravager deflected the boomerangs with their swords and Ravager retaliated with kunai, which Manslayer evaded.

_He's agile, but it's no more than someone like Batman or any of his ilk could do,_ Deathstroke thought.

Manslayer drew his guns again and launched into the air, twirling and firing at Deathstroke and Ravager, who acrobatically evaded his bullets. Manslayer didn't exactly stop firing; he merely somersaulted and twisted before shooting again. At first, it seemed like he was shooting wildly, but the technique seemed too polished for it to be just random shots.

"Oh, hell," Ravager muttered. "He's bouncing his shots."

Indeed, he was. Even though the bullets were missing her and her father, they were ricocheting everywhere . . . and even they couldn't be so lucky as to avoid each and every one.

Fortunately, that's what they had Kevlar-reinforced black leather for. Of course, Ravager could also predict the immediate future, so that was an added bonus in keeping them safe from Manslayer's trick shots.

"I think you've gone far enough," Deathstroke said, withdrawing a knuckle-like hand laser from his belt and shooting it at Manslayer, who proved unable to avoid the blast.

"That hurt, asshole," Manslayer growled, holding his wounded shoulder.

"You'll live," Deathstroke drawled. "Not for much longer, but you'll live."

Manslayer holstered his guns and ran.

"Coward," Ravager hissed.

"No, daughter," Deathstroke spoke. "There's something else he's planning."

With that said, both assassins went to the room where the guard watched the footage from the security cameras. Not to their surprise, they found said guard unconscious on the floor and the security cameras turned off. Ravager immediately embedded a tranquilizer dart in his neck.

"To keep him unconscious longer," she said, sitting down in the guard's chair and turning the security cameras back on. She looked in the various screens, checking angle after angle and room after room until she found Manslayer in the room that housed Grayson Enterprises' mainframe.

"He's hacking the mainframe," Deathstroke deduced. "No doubt attempting to get his hands on the notes for Grayson's little solution."

"So even if we have the solution, he has the means to recreate it, means he can give to his employers," the Ravager finished.

"He won't get that far," Deathstroke said, turning to exit the room. Ravager rose from her seat and followed him.

* * *

"_You have come far in these past three years, Rose," the True Master spoke. "I have never quite had a pupil like you."_

"_Thank you, True Master," Rose said._

"_Please, call me Chui-hui," the True Master offered. "You have earned the right."_

_Rose bowed respectfully to the True Master. She had managed to escape from her homeland and the guerilla force that had overtaken it, but she had found herself lost. However, she had had a goal to keep her going._

_Revenge._

_To that end, she had sought out the True Master. She had endured the challenges. And it had gained her an audience with the True Master, who took her into her home and trained her._

_Rose had become extremely skilled in the three years that followed. She could most likely defeat men twice or three times her size. However, there was something about the silver-haired girl that troubled Chui-hui._

_Her rage._

_Yes, her rage. Chui-hui had sensed from the very beginning the rage that hid within the depths of Rose's soul. She had taken the girl into her care despite that, hoping that her training would give her peace of mind and enable her to let go of her rage. Unfortunately, as time passed, that rage had only festered. Rose kept it controlled enough, but it slipped out occasionally when they trained, particularly when Rose's strikes were more forceful than necessary._

"_Rose," Chui-hui spoke. "Why did you seek me out?"_

"_I wanted to become strong," Rose replied._

"_For what purpose do you intend to use your strength?" Chui-hui asked._

"_To make the people who made me an orphan pay for what they did," Rose answered._

"_I see," Chui-hui uttered. "You want revenge. I have told you this before, Rose. Revenge only blackens the soul. You must fight first and foremost for justice and life, not for revenge and death."_

"_It is justice," Rose stated. "They took my mother and my home. It is only fair that I repay them in kind."_

"_There is no room for that sort of thinking in these mountains," Chui-hui spoke. "If you cannot comprehend that, then you must leave."_

"_I see," Rose said. She rose and turned away to walk out of Chui-hui's mountaintop home. "Good-bye, True Master."_

* * *

Manslayer continued hacking into the Grayson Enterprises' mainframe.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" he muttered. "Why the freak can't I get in? What kind of firewalls are these?"

He picked up a black visor with a red lens and slipped it on over his mask. The visor, in reality, was a remote interface tool. Hopefully, it would enable him to get inside the mainframe.

He didn't quite fare so well. Still, he pressed on, mentally cutting through layers of programming meant to block him from what he sought.

"Yeah . . ." he muttered. "Just gotta get through."

Suddenly, the cyber-world around him went completely black.

"What the freak?" Manslayer asked, pulling off the remote interface visor. To his shock, the mainframe screen had a smoking puncture hole in it. He whirled around in anger, razor-sharp boomerangs in hand.

Deathstroke held his knuckle laser by his side, ready to fire again at a moment's notice. The Ravager stood beside him, katana in hand.

"You can't access the files now," Deathstroke said. "Meaning your employers won't have the tools to recreate the solution."

Manslayer chuckled. "Just means I'll have to take the solution from your cold, dead hands."

"Try it," Ravager sneered.

"Your funeral, babe," Manslayer remarked, throwing all four boomerangs at the duo, who evaded them. As it turned out, though, the boomerangs were just a distraction, since Manslayer immediately opened fire on the two in the shadow of the boomerangs. Deathstroke and Ravager dodged the bullets as well as they could, but as the boomerangs had distracted them, they couldn't dodge all of them. Fortunately, the Kevlar-leather fabric of their uniforms stopped the bullets. Not like it mattered that much; if the bullets managed to pierce the suits, their wearers would simply heal very quickly.

_He's better than I expected,_ Ravager thought as she began deflecting bullets with her titanium-steel katana. As she did this, Deathstroke returned fire.

Manslayer somersaulted into the air, avoiding Deathstroke's shots and returning fire amidst acrobatic moves.

"What the hell is this?" Deathstroke wondered.

"Way of the Gun," Manslayer replied as he shot at the masked mastermind.

Deathstroke and Ravager had heard of the Way of the Gun. Supposedly, it was a martial art that mixed gunplay with death-defying acrobatics, much like capoeira mixed dancing, elements of acrobatics, and fighting.

Ravager threw sharp, armor-piercing darts at Manslayer, who managed to dodge about half and deflect the other half with his bullets.

"Honestly," the red-and-black-clad mercenary admitted, "I've wanted to test myself against you for a while. At first, I thought if I could bag the daughter of Deathstroke, as the rumors claimed you to be, I'd be number one. But now . . . I bag both you and your old man and I'll _really_ be number one."

"Ambitious, aren't we?" Ravager remarked, reaching into her belt and withdrawing flash-bang grenades that she proceeded to throw at Manslayer. The grenades disoriented him, not for very long, but long enough for Ravager and Deathstroke to beat him in a combined attack.

Manslayer was left trying to recover his breath after the brutal blows from the father-daughter duo had knocked it out of him.

"I'd suggest giving up," Ravager said. "We have the solution and I don't think you're good enough to take it from us."

Manslayer simply detached more boomerangs from his belt and threw them at the duo, who caught them all.

"Is this all you have?" Deathstroke asked mockingly. "We're not impressed."

Manslayer merely pressed a button on his belt buckle and the boomerangs made one long beep before exploding. Fortunately, Deathstroke and Ravager had thrown the boomerangs away and ducked for cover before they could be blown to pieces. The mainframe room wasn't as lucky, looking worse for wear in the wake of the detonations.

_

* * *

Rose sat in a dank, dark, and dirty prison. She had returned to her homeland with the intent of slaughtering those who had raped and murdered her mother. She'd only been able to take down about seven before the soldiers had gotten the better of her by sheer force of numbers. Thanks to her extremely strong constitution, she'd survived the experience mostly intact. However, she was now awaiting her execution, which would take place the following morning. It would be public, just to teach the people what happened to rebels._

"_Are you Rose Wilson Worth?" a feminine voice, strong and clear, asked._

"_I'm Rose Worth," the silver-haired girl replied. "I know nothing about a Wilson."_

"_Very well," the voice spoke. "You'll find that out later."_

"_What do you want with me?" Rose asked._

"_To save you," the voice replied. "To teach you to harness the potential you possess. I'd hate to see it go to waste."_

"_How'd you get past the guard?" Rose inquired._

"_Easily," the voice answered, its owner stepping out of the shadows of the prison cell._

_Rose beheld the woman before her. She was of medium height, perhaps slightly taller than average. Her dark hair was in a short, feminine style and clear blue eyes stared out of a classically beautiful face. She wore a black leather zip-up vest over a navy blouse and black pants that molded to her hips and thighs._

"_You know my name," Rose said. "Isn't it the polite thing to do to introduce yourself?"_

"_Yes," the woman responded with a smile. "Nyssa is my name."_

"_Why do you want me?" Rose asked._

"_It's certainly better than spending the last days of your life here," Nyssa replied. "If you come with me, I can teach you to harness your potential – and the power that your rage gives you." She extended her hand._

_Rose took it._

_The silver-haired young girl soon found herself in the mountain stronghold of Nyssa's organization the League of Shadows, leadership of which she shared with her half-sister Talia. She looked around and saw men and women clad in form-fitting black with masks that concealed their entire faces except for their eyes._

"_What is this?" Rose asked._

"_The League of Shadows," Talia greeted, dressed in a skintight black suit similar to what the men and women around her wore but sans mask. "This organization's purpose is to avenge the injustices wreaked upon this world by man's inhumanity to man. Here, we will train you so that you have the power to do the same."_

"_Sounds good to me," Rose said._

_Over the next three years, Talia and Nyssa trained Rose in various forms of unarmed and armed combat with a focus on Jeet Kune Do, ninjutsu, and kenjutsu. In addition, she trained in gymnastics and deductive reasoning. Furthermore, the sister leaders of the League of Shadows educated her in mathematics, sciences, literature, general sociology, criminology, and criminal justice as it was applied throughout the world. She even learned a thing or two about governments throughout the world._

_Nyssa had a rather scornful view of democracy, Rose discovered. She remembered the woman's words with clarity._

"_It's a good concept, but all too often the process is corrupted by those with money and when a crisis strikes, the people are all too willing to give up the liberties granted by democracy because they'd rather have a 'strong' leader to protect them."_

_Those words would stick with Rose for a long time to come._

_One night, while Rose rested from her training, Nyssa asked her, "Do you know who your father is?"_

"_No," Rose replied. "I never met him."_

"_His name is Slade Wilson," Nyssa replied. "He was a soldier in the United States Army who underwent an experiment that was supposed to make him resistant to truth serums. However, it was actually meant to create metahuman soldiers. Your father survived but found himself able to use ninety percent of his brain, which enhanced both his mind and his body. He decided to go into business for himself and sell his abilities to the highest bidder, becoming an assassin of the highest caliber. Eventually, he took his profits and used them to amass considerable power in the criminal underworld, going simply by his first name to maintain an aura of mystery. He clashed for years with a team of young heroes called the Titans, even taking several members as his apprentices at one time or another. Of course, they all left him._

"_The last time anyone saw him alive, he was working with a yakuza syndicate called the Kokuryu. Before that, he rescued your mother from her homeland when it was torn apart by war and left her in Thailand, where you were born."_

_Rose swallowed, taking the information in. So her father was a criminal? A mercenary and then a boss? The same kind of person she was supposed to loathe and battle with every fiber of her being?_

"_This cannot be easy information for you to bear, Rose," Nyssa spoke. "I will leave you for now."_

* * *

Manslayer threw a fast punch at Ravager, who swatted it aside and shot her hand at his throat. Manslayer moved out of the way, but she anticipated that and swerved into a brutal kick to the gut, which knocked him into the damaged mainframe. Deathstroke leaped over Ravager's head and came down with a punch to Manslayer's head that would have surely knocked him out if the red-and-black-clad mercenary hadn't moved out of the way at the last minute.

Ravager and Deathstroke came back together, attacking Manslayer as one. Whenever Manslayer dodged one, the other would use his momentary distraction to land a blow. When Manslayer attacked one, the other would use that as an opportunity to strike.

In other words, the crimson-and-obsidian clad mercenary was so screwed it wasn't funny.

Or maybe it was. At least to the father-daughter duo that was tossing him around like they were playing catch.

"Are you ready to give up yet?" Deathstroke asked.

Manslayer pulled up his mask enough to spit blood and a tooth out at the masked mastermind.

"I'll take that as a no," Deathstroke remarked nonchalantly as he drew his sword. "Shall we kill you here?"

Manslayer glared as he pulled his mask back down.

"If your boss is the sort of person I think he is, it'd be better if you let my father kill you now," Ravager said. "At least he'll make it quick."

Manslayer raised his middle finger. That resulted in Ravager grabbing said finger and breaking it. To his credit, Manslayer didn't scream or make any audible sign of pain.

"Oh, let's finish this already," Deathstroke said and withdrew his knuckle laser, shooting Manslayer in the head with it. "Too bad. He had spunk. I could have done something with that."

_

* * *

By the time her seventeenth birthday arrived, Rose was capable of fighting a handful of opponents with ease, an ease that was aided by her unusual strength, reflexes, and agility, and could probably battle a roomful with effort. In addition, she had discovered that she could see glimpses of the immediate future and honed that ability so that she could predict what her opponents would do in a fight. This was only part of the reason she was such a dangerous opponent, the rest owing to her sheer skill._

_On her seventeenth birthday, Nyssa brought Rose to the main room of the League of Shadows' stronghold. The other members of the League were there as well, parted like the Red Sea to reveal Talia standing with a man whose hands were tied behind his back. The man was dressed in rags and his face and hair were dirty._

"_Who is he?" Rose asked._

"_Him?"_ _Nyssa asked. "Once a peasant farmer. Then he coveted his neighbor's land and became a murderer."_

"_What will happen to him?" Rose asked._

"_Justice," Nyssa replied. "Crime cannot be tolerated. Criminals thrive on so-called 'civilized' society's pathetic attempts to understand them. There is nothing hard about understanding the mind of a criminal. Criminals do what they do for their own gain."_

"_Why do you think justice is represented in some parts of the world by scales?" Talia asked Rose. She proceeded to answer her own question. "Justice is balance. When crime is committed, the scales are unbalanced. The counterweight is punishment."_

"_Do you expect me to punish him?" Rose asked._

"_Yes," Talia replied as Nyssa handed Rose her katana. "You'll kill him. He is a murderer and his own death will bring back balance."_

_Rose looked at the man. "A murderer," she muttered. "He's a murderer." The word "murderer" repeated itself in her mind, driving her forward._

_Finally, she was before the man. She raised her katana and brought it down in one swift, graceful motion, dousing herself in the blood that splattered from her victim's sliced body._

"_Good," Nyssa spoke. "We are ready to begin."_

"_Begin what?" Rose asked._

"_Our mission," Nyssa replied. "It is not just individuals that are responsible for crime; society is largely to blame for this. Some societies are so corrupt by their very nature that crime flourishes. For the greater good, those societies must be destroyed."_

"_And what happens afterward?" Rose questioned._

"_If there are any survivors, we allow them to rebuild, to make something better out of the ashes of what came before," Talia answered._

"_Bull," Rose spat. "What if those survivors are the same kind of scum that those societies created? We ought to do the rebuilding ourselves."_

"_And take charge?" Nyssa finished. "You do not understand, Rose. We are liberators, not conquerors."_

"_That's what you think," Rose said as she leaped out of the window, taking the bloodstained katana with her._

* * *

Deathstroke and Ravager carried Manslayer's corpse back to their stealth jet, Ravager having to bear the burden of holding said corpse on her lap as Deathstroke flew the jet until they were over the ocean. He opened the cockpit of the jet.

"Throw the body into the ocean," he ordered. "It's very unlikely he'll be found there."

Ever the dutiful daughter, Ravager threw Manslayer's body overboard, watching with idle interest as it plummeted into the ocean.

_

* * *

Rose fell on her rear end for what felt like the hundredth time._

"_Up, girl," the woman known as Lady Shiva spoke._

_Rose obediently rose to her feet and shifted into a combat stance, closely watching Lady Shiva's stance as well. There were no weaknesses in that stance that she could see, no vulnerabilities unless they were deliberately planted to draw her into an attack._

"_You're doing far better than I would have expected of you," Shiva stated with a hint of an amused smile. "And this is only the second day."_

_Lady Shiva was no ordinary martial artist. She was the best, a woman who had dedicated her entire life to mastery of the art, often proving said mastery by challenging, defeating, and killing other masters. She also kept a list of people who were within her range in terms of skill and another list of people who had the potential to reach her range. Those on the latter list she usually tended to kill before they could become a threat to her, unless they fascinated her enough so that she trained them._

_Rose Wilson turned out to be one of those people, hence the training. The way Shiva trained her students, she demonstrated a move and then used it on them to see if they could counter it and use it themselves._

_While Rose had the edge in terms of enhanced strength and agility as well as her ability to predict Shiva's next moves, Shiva was a greater martial artist than her and could read an opponent's body language, effectively granting her the same ability as Rose. Due to Shiva's superior skill, Rose found herself knocked on her ass more often than she was able to evade._

_On the third day, Rose finally landed a blow on Shiva, the heel of her palm striking the older woman in the jaw and knocking her off her feet._

"_Very good," Shiva said. "Your lessons are complete."_

"_Complete?" Rose wondered._

"_Yes, you agreed that I would teach you for three days, as that's all I actually needed to make a fearsome opponent out of you," Lady Shiva answered. She presented Rose with her katana, which looked even better than before. "I took it upon myself to re-forge your blade while I trained you. You'll find the metal far stronger than it was."_

"_Thank you," Rose said._

_Shiva chuckled._

_Over the next year, Rose found out more about her father, particularly the chemical solution that had enhanced his abilities. While she herself was no real slouch in terms of physical power, she could only lift three times her body weight, which wasn't exactly impossible for a physically normal human._

_She learned to synthesize her own version of the solution, her knowledge of chemistry good enough to facilitate this. She rolled up her sleeve and mainlined the serum right into her bloodstream. Immediately, she began to suffer spasms. She collapsed as the spasms wracked her body, resisting the urge to cry out in pain._

"_Won't scream," she muttered. "Won't scream."_

_Hours later, the spasms stopped and she rose to her feet, feeling power coursing through her veins._

"_That's better," she said with a smile crossing her face that could only be described as demonic._

* * *

Deathstroke and the Ravager returned to their headquarters no worse for wear. Once there, Deathstroke removed the canister from his belt pouch.

"The only viable sample of Grayson's little solution and it's in our hands," he said.

"Shouldn't we test it first?" Ravager asked. "I mean before we sell it to the highest bidder."

"Good point," Deathstroke agreed. "If we are to really stoke our potential buyers' desire for this product, they have to see that it actually works." He smiled under his mask. "I'm glad I have you for a daughter."

"Thank you, Father," Ravager said.

_

* * *

In Thailand, the guerilla force that had overtaken the land was standing guard over the home of their leader. To their shock, a shuriken embedded itself in one of the guerillas' throats, causing him to choke on his own blood._

"_What is going on?" another guerilla asked, only to be sliced in the back by a katana, the blade cutting through flesh, muscle, and bone._

_The other soldiers met death in similar fashions, none of them knowing who their killer was or the reason their killer had targeted them._

_Meanwhile, the leader relaxed in his home, about ready to call in one of his "comfort women" to tend to his needs. He was a fierce-eyed man with slicked, well-kept hair and a fit body that had been scarred in many battles, such as the battle that had delivered this land into his hands._

_He saw the shadow of a feminine figure enter and he thought it was a comfort woman for an instant, an instant that ended when he saw the shine of a katana pointed at his throat._

"_Who are you?" he asked._

_The figure stepped into the light, revealing a young woman dressed in what appeared to be form-fitting black leather with chain mail covering her shoulders and arms and armor plating on her knees, shins, and feet. Her gloves were black with matching bands wrapped around her forearms. A silver belt hung loosely on her hips and a bisected red-eyed mask, orange on the right side and black on the left, covered her face up to her nose, leaving wine-red lips that twisted in contempt exposed._

"_The Ravager," she replied simply._

* * *

End Notes: Man, this chapter was fun to write. Hopefully, you liked the two stories within it. At first, I was going to do a straight origin piece, but as I thought about it, I figured it would be a good idea to show how Ravager and Slade/Deathstroke work together. So I decided to do an origin piece interspersed with a present-day piece.

With the exception of Manslayer, who is my own character although I drew upon elements of Marvel's Deadpool to create him, everyone else is pretty much owned by DC Comics. The True Master, Chui-hui, comes from the Season 4 TT episode "The Quest." Lady Shiva comes from the Batman comics primarily. Talia and Nyssa are also from the Batman comics, both being daughters of Ra's al Ghul although the latter wasn't revealed until about two years ago.

For those of you who did watch Batman Begins, you'll notice that I've used the League of Shadows and its mission in place of the League of Assassins that's more commonly recognized in the DCU. The reason was that I thought the League of Shadows was a pretty cool idea, considering that they're essentially breeding Batmen that'll do whatever it takes to serve their idea of justice, even if it means destroying entire societies.

When I came up with Manslayer, I intended him to have photographic reflexes. What that means is that he would be able to master any physical action as long as he saw someone else do it first. In this manner, he would become a master martial artist, swordsman, and gunner. Of course, I couldn't really figure out a way for him to demonstrate that skill, so I decided not to mention it. Just assume that's how he did all the stuff that he did.

If you're wondering about Grayson Enterprises, it's Richard Grayson's company. In this continuity, Richard became convinced that what Blüdhaven needed was an honest business to bring clean money into the city, so he studied up, got his degree in business and finance, and started that business. Combined with his actions as Nightwing, it was able to bring honest revenue into the city and thus cleanse the city's air of corruption, although a faint hint of the smell still remains. As you may have inferred from this story, Grayson Enterprises' specialty is medical technology, although some of that has military applications that Richard refuses to explore.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.


	17. Quicksilver: Demons Speeding

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 1: "Demons Speeding"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar, Mercury, and Speed Demon do not belong to me; the first is owned by DC Comics and the latter two are owned jointly by DC and Marvel Comics with some alterations on my part. Everything else, unless you recognize it from DC Comics, is mine.

Author's note: It's about time that I turned my focus on Mercury, as the title of this arc hints. When I came up with "Quicksilver," I was inspired by Mark Waid's last two arcs on the Flash comics, "Chain Lightning" and "The Dark Flash Saga." Now, it won't be very much like "Chain Lightning," but there will be definite resemblances to "Dark Flash."

Super-speed is cool . . . and you'll see why soon enough.

_

* * *

Years ago . . ._

* * *

Two men raced each other at incomprehensible speeds. Both wore costumes that were virtually identical in design, but there were notable differences. One man's costume was red with yellow lightning highlights and boots and the other man's costume had the colors reversed. The red-clad man's costume had a yellow lightning emblem in a white circle and the yellow-clad man's costume had a red lightning emblem in a black circle. The red-clad man wore a mask that covered everything except his eyes and mouth, while the yellow-clad man's mask had black lenses. Both wore expressions of determination, but the yellow-clad man's expression was more malevolent.

These two men were Wally West and Hunter Zolomon, alias the Flash and Zoom.

A terrible attack by the Flash's longtime enemy Grodd had crippled Hunter, who had begged Wally to use the Cosmic Treadmill to go back and fix it. Wally had refused, stating that altering the past could make the future even worse. Feeling betrayed, Hunter had attempted to use the Treadmill himself, only the machine had exploded and said explosion had knocked Hunter out of sync with the timeline, effectively granting him super-speed.

Hunter became Zoom and waged a campaign of terror on Wally and his friends and family, feeling that Wally needed to experience tragedy to become a better hero. Wally had managed to defeat Zoom once, but only with the speed of his fellow speedsters and after one of Zoom's attacks had caused Wally's wife Linda to miscarry their twins.

Now they were racing through time, back to the moment when Zoom first attacked Linda.

"There'll be nothing left of her when I'm through," Zoom snarled as he circled the world, building up speed. Wally raced to catch up, only a second or two behind, but when one was a speedster, being mere seconds behind was too much.

They were close . . . so close to when the turning point was reached.

Finally, in an act of sheer desperation, Wally lunged . . . and struck Zoom so hard that his neck snapped. The Reverse-Flash flew into the path of his past self's sonic boom attack . . . and was obliterated.

"Hunter!" Wally cried out, horrified by what he'd done. "I . . . I didn't mean for it to happen. It shouldn't have been this way!"

He ran back to his own time, ran straight to the Keystone City Police Department.

"Flash!" Detective Chyre exclaimed. "What brings you here?"

"Arrest me," Wally replied, removing his mask. "Arrest me."

"Why?" Detective Morillo asked.

"I'm a murderer," Wally replied. "I killed Zoom. I didn't mean it, but I killed him."

"Zoom?" Morillo asked. "You mean Zolomon?"

"Yeah," Wally confirmed sadly.

"If that's the case, then . . ." Chyre handcuffed Wally's hands behind his back. "Wallace Rudolph West, you are under arrest for the murder of Hunter Zolomon. You have the right to remain silent, or else anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you. . . ."

There really wasn't much of a trial. In light of Wally's past heroic deeds and the fact that Zoom was a murderous maniac, his actions were ultimately ruled as justifiable homicide, as he had been acting in the defense of life.

Once Wally exited the courtroom, he was bombarded by questions from reporters. The most consistent question was, "Are you going to continue on as the Flash?"

"No," Wally replied. "I did this to honor the guy who came before me and this . . . this has dishonored him. I can't wear the costume anymore, knowing what I did."

"Do you think that other superheroes will take similar action against their enemies in light of your verdict?" another reporter asked.

"We don't condone indiscriminate killing, even if it's of our enemies," Wally answered.

Somewhere in Keystone, a small hand turned off the television set.

"I hate him," a little girl's voice stated angrily. "He killed Daddy, and he's not rotting for it."

A woman with light brown hair embraced the little girl. "He didn't mean to, Alison. They were friends, once."

"Some friend he was," Alison growled. "People aren't supposed to kill their friends."

The woman reluctantly released Alison, resisting the urge to cry in front of her.

"Mommy," Alison murmured. "I'll make him sorry he made you cry."

_

* * *

Present day_

* * *

Peter Allen watched as his friend Schuyler was wheeled into the ambulance on a stretcher. He ran up to the ambulance and moved to climb in, only to be stopped by a paramedic.

"Let me in, I'm a Titan," Peter said.

"Are you family?" the paramedic asked.

"Close enough," Peter replied. "Besides, I can use my powers to detox him."

"Or you might cycle the crap in his veins even faster and kill him," the paramedic retorted. He sighed upon seeing the desperate expression on Peter's face. "Fine. Come in, but don't try anything."

Peter entered the ambulance, sitting on the right-side bench.

He couldn't believe it. He knew what had happened; he just couldn't believe it happened. Schuyler had gone to a rave and been pressured into taking methamphetamines. Schuyler had managed to say before passing out that it was someone from school that had given him the meth. Unfortunately, he'd passed out before he could name that person.

Peter clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails pierced his palms, blood seeping out from between his fingers. Somebody was going to pay for what had happened to Schuyler.

When the ambulance reached the hospital, they wheeled Schuyler out and into the detoxification room. Peter was left to wait and try to console Schuyler's parents. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the words.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect him."

Schuyler's parents didn't respond. Somehow, that felt worse than them berating him for not looking after him.

"I'll make it right," Peter murmured. "I'll find out who was handing out the drugs and I'll make them pay."

* * *

The platinum-haired speedster ran out of the hospital, trying to clear his head. As he ran, he popped open the ring on his right middle finger and his familiar blue-and-white costume popped out, only compressed into a miniature size. Once out of the ring, the costume quickly grew to full size and Peter changed into it, becoming Mercury.

Mercury crisscrossed the city, a blur of blue and white to those that saw him. He ran and ran and ran, hoping to bleed off his anger and sadness.

Suddenly, a fiery blur slammed into him, knocking him off his course and into a nearby car, turning it into scrap metal due to the momentum with which he was propelled at said car.

Mercury wiped blood from his lip and got up, only to be confronted by an unpleasantly familiar flame-skulled visage.

"Speed Demon."

The demonic speedster charged up a sphere of burning hyperkinetic energy and punched it at Mercury, the impact splintering the sphere into about twenty smaller "speed bullets." Mercury attempted to dodge, but the speed bullets moved even faster than he did and he was thrown back onto the ground.

"Come on, Mercury. You can do better than that."

Mercury growled as he rose to his feet and charged at Speed Demon with a fast punch. Speed Demon blocked the punch and kicked him hard in the ribs, dislocating one. Mercury ignored the dislocated rib and grabbed Speed Demon's leg, twisting into a cartwheel that flowed into a kick to the demon's flaming skull.

"That hurt. Almost."

Another hyperkinetic flame sphere shot at Mercury, splintering into twenty speed bullets. Mercury blocked as many as he could, but the ones that got through did so with bullet-like force. His costume was designed to protect him from the effects of friction, even though his Speed Force aura did an excellent job of that already, but it wasn't designed to take bullets.

"Damn it," Mercury muttered. "What do you want?"

"You dead," Speed Demon replied laconically. "You and the rest of your kind."

Mercury shot himself into a fast flying kick, striking Speed Demon in his jaw. He flipped back and landed on his feet, skidding backward before gaining a solid footing. He slid into a low sweeping kick, only for Speed Demon to jump over it and kick Mercury in his jaw, dislocating it. Mercury forced his jaw back into place and let his body's accelerated metabolism take care of the healing.

The two speedsters came at each other with fast punches and kicks, simultaneously blocking and attacking one another. Speed Demon kicked Mercury in the ribs again, aggravating the earlier wound. Mercury bit his tongue, swallowing his pain, and grabbed Speed Demon by the ankle, flipping him off him. Speed Demon twisted in mid-flip and kicked Mercury in the jaw again, disrupting the accelerated healing process. Mercury turned what would have been a fall into a flip and spun on his hand into a kick to Speed Demon's stomach.

Speed Demon grabbed Mercury by the leg and dragged him across the pavement before throwing him at yet another car, said car smashing under the impact. Mercury got up, only for Speed Demon to punch the ground with a fist charged with hyperkinetic energy, sending a sonic wave through it that crumbled the street beneath him.

Mercury's retaliation was to trigger a sonic boom that sent the wrecked car flying at Speed Demon, who simply detonated the car with one punch.

"Hell," the young speedster muttered. "How do I beat this freak?"

He didn't really have time to muse on this, as Speed Demon jumped through the smoke and flame generated by his detonation and attacked Mercury yet again. Mercury blocked his strikes as best as he could, but Speed Demon was on a whole other level in terms of speed and fighting skills. After all, human fighting techniques were more for the sake of defense and disabling, while demon fighting techniques were more geared towards offense and crippling, if not outright killing.

Finally, Mercury grabbed Speed Demon's arm and wrenched it until it broke. Speed Demon let out a roar of pain that quickly became laughter, as he threw his arm out and the bone snapped back into place. He resumed pummeling Mercury at super-speed, his fists ablaze with hellfire.

The hellfire singed every time it made contact with him, not just his flesh, but far deeper. He began blocking his demonic rival's attacks, accelerating his brain as well as his body so that he might stand a chance. At long last, he struck Speed Demon in the chest, knocking him back.

If the demon had lips, he might have actually smiled. As it was, he stared at Mercury through his empty eye sockets and said, "A taste of things to come, speed brat." He zoomed away in a fiery blur, leaving Mercury feeling battered.

* * *

In Keystone City, Iris West, alias Kid Flash, was on patrol.

It hadn't been easy to get to this point. Her twin brother Barry was a lazy bastard with no interest in using his powers for heroism and yet their father had pinned his hopes on him, at least until he was forcibly confronted by Barry's apathy. That had opened his eyes to Iris's passionate devotion to the legacy of the Flash and he'd given her his blessing to use the name. Of course, Bart Allen was calling himself the Flash at the time, so she'd had to go by "Kid Flash" to avoid confusing anyone.

Kid Flash wore her usual uniform, a black leather jacket over a sleeveless red half-shirt bearing a silver lightning emblem on the chest and red pants made from a friction-proof leather-like material that bore silver lightning designs on the sides. Her face was covered by a red half-mask that left her red-orange hair exposed and semitransparent silver glasses with lightning-like edges.

She ran past a mugging, leaving said mugger neatly tied up and the victim-to-be with purse in hand . . . and both absolutely stunned by what had just happened.

She suddenly found herself dodging a razor-sharp boomerang thrown at super-speed. Whirling, Kid Flash found herself face to face with Captain Boomerang.

"Oh, it's you again," she spoke, sounding bored.

"Fine, don't take me seriously," Captain Boomerang remarked, pulling more boomerangs off his outfit – a dark jacket and lighter pants with a boomerang-decorated scarf – and throwing them at Kid Flash.

Kid Flash dodged the boomerangs and even caught one. "Hey . . . I'm getting good at this."

Captain Boomerang grumbled under his breath and dodged the boomerang as it was thrown back at him.

"Wow, this is kinda fun," Kid Flash remarked. "No wonder you like boomerangs so much."

"You know the great thing about boomerangs, kid?" Captain Boomerang asked.

"They come back," Kid Flash replied.

"Like so," Captain Boomerang confirmed as he caught his boomerangs. To the surprise of Kid Flash, he charged at her at super-speed and struck her solidly in the face.

"Hey!" Kid Flash exclaimed. "You're not supposed to hit a lady!"

"Somehow, I find it hard to believe that you're a lady," Captain Boomerang remarked snidely.

Kid Flash huffed angrily and charged Captain Boomerang, who was able to react fast enough to block her attack but barely. Kid Flash's retort came in the form of a high-speed knee jab to the crotch, which made Captain Boomerang collapse in untold agony.

"Don't worry, I didn't hit you that hard," the leather-jacketed speedster said. "You'll still be able to have kids, though I don't know any woman who'd like to sleep with you. Bye."

She zoomed away, only to be brutally knocked off a bridge. She fell into the river below, landing roughly. She struggled to rise for air, but her jacket was heavy, which hampered her efforts somewhat. Finally, she came to the sad conclusion that if she wanted to get to the surface fast enough to live, she'd have to ditch the jacket,

_Good-bye, jacket,_ she thought mournfully as she removed it. _May you rest well._

Now free of the jacket's weight, Kid Flash moved her legs in a scissor pattern, building up kinetic energy until she rocketed out of the river and back onto the bridge. She leaned over and spat out water, gasping a few times to catch her breath. Her clothes clung even tighter to her than they had before and her wet hair hung in her eyes.

"Who did that?" she wondered.

"Me," a female voice rasped out, dragging out the "e."

Kid Flash whirled and saw a female Flash . . . at least design-wise. Otherwise, the outfit was completely different. Where the Flash's costume was primarily vivid red, this woman's costume was pitch black. Where the lightning highlights around the forearms, calves, and waist were yellow, hers were red. Where the lightning ear-caps were yellow, hers were red. Where the Flash's symbol was a yellow lightning bolt in a white circle, this woman's symbol was a red lightning bolt facing the opposite direction and in a black circle. Where the Flash's lenses were white, the woman's were blood red.

"Who are you?" Kid Flash asked.

"Vengeance," the black-clad "Flash" replied before brutally slamming the younger girl.

Kid Flash cried out in surprise. This "Black Flash" was blindingly fast, even faster than her.

The redheaded speedster coughed and rose to her feet. "All right, bitch. Through playing around." She charged at the older female with a Mach 1 punch, only for Black Flash – as Kid Flash called her in her mind – to sidestep the punch and grab her by the wrist. "How did you –?"

"Faster," Black Flash replied. She gazed at Kid Flash. "Not fast enough."

She threw Kid Flash at the bridge railing and Kid Flash grabbed it, pulling herself up into a handstand. She proceeded to flip backward and launch herself into a flying kick. Again, her attack was caught by Black Flash, who threw her onto the ground.

"No challenge," Black Flash growled.

Kid Flash noticed something about Black Flash's voice. Not only did it rasp, it seemed to alternate between so slow individual syllables were dragged out and so fast whole words blurred into one.

"I'll show you a challenge," Kid Flash snarled and shot forth at Black Flash with swift punches. Black Flash blocked each and every one of them, catching the last punch and tossing the younger speedster.

"You said you would show me a challenge," Black Flash spoke, so quickly that the words were blurring together. "Where?"

Kid Flash shot forward with another volley of punches, even faster than the last one. Again, Black Flash blocked all of them, finally catching Kid Flash's fist in her hand. Kid Flash punched with her other fist, but Black Flash caught that one as well. She swung her legs up and kicked her younger opponent hard in the sternum, knocking her into the bridge railing and almost over it.

"Weak," Black Flash hissed. "Tell your father . . . death will come for him . . . for what he did."

She was gone in a black blur.

"Oh, crap," Kid Flash murmured. "Who the hell was that? No . . . what the hell was that?"

* * *

The next day, Mercury sat through school in a haze of rage. Someone in Jump City High School had given Schuyler meth, meth that had put him in the hospital. Whoever it was . . . they were going to pay.

"Mr. Allen, are you paying attention?" the math teacher, Mr. Verheiden asked.

"Yeah, I've got a math question," Mercury replied. "Say your friend ends up in the hospital because some asshole in this school gave him bad meth. At what angle do I need to twist the son of a bitch's arm to get him to confess?"

"Peter Allen, there is no room for vigilante justice within this school's borders," Verheiden stated. "Save that for your super-villains."

Mercury growled low in his throat and swallowed his rage.

* * *

As soon as lunchtime rolled around, Mercury sped toward the section of the lockers where the basketball team hung out.

"Hey," he greeted darkly. "Any of you at that rave last night?"

"I was," Malcolm Reese, the starting center, replied.

"You see who it was passing meth around?" Mercury asked.

"Not exactly," Malcolm replied.

"Now why do I get the feeling you're not telling me the full truth?" Mercury inquired with a dangerous look in his eye.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Malcolm answered.

"Just answer my question and I'll leave you alone," Mercury growled.

"Hey, back off," Jensen Winter, the starting guard, said. "If he doesn't know, he doesn't know. No need to trip."

"Trip?" Mercury echoed. "Is that what you call it? I happen to have a friend in the hospital because somebody in this school was passing around bad meth. Now unless you're willing to give me an answer, I'll have to get rough."

"You don't have the rocks," Jensen challenged.

"You wanna test that?" Mercury challenged with a dangerously wide smile on his face.

"We gotta go to lunch, man," Malcolm said.

"Fine . . . but I'm watching you . . . all of you," Mercury conceded before speeding away.

_

* * *

Quicksilver Log, Entry 1: This thing was Terri's idea. Said I needed it to keep track of my thoughts and stuff like that. Well, here goes. My friend Schuyler is in the hospital. Why? He was pressured into taking meth. Before he passed out, he told me that it was someone from our school that gave it to him. I'm going to find out who it is and I'm going to beat them to the very edge of death, then pull them back before I start all over again. Does that sound vicious? Yes, but no less than what they deserve._

_End log._

* * *

Mercury put aside his mini-disk recorder and began eating his lunch. The Titans had known for some time that there was a kind of underworld hidden within the halls of their school. Behind the veneer of safety, security, and good grades lay a sordid dark side, one filled with sex, drugs, and violence. The only reason they didn't do something about it was that they had signed a contract with the school when they enrolled. In exchange for their education, they would leave the issue of detecting and punishing student misdeeds to the faculty and administration.

Of course, that didn't mean they couldn't do something once those students exited the school grounds.

"What's up?" Inferno asked, sitting down beside Mercury.

"Interrogated a basketball player who was at the rave that night," Mercury replied. "Got nowhere."

"You are aware we're not supposed to be doing that," Inferno said.

"I know," Mercury answered. "The contract. Well, screw the contract. Schuyler's in the hospital because some asshole in this school was passing around bad meth. I'm gonna find out who it was and when I do . . ."

"You think that maybe Schuyler shouldn't have taken the crap in the first place?" Inferno asked.

"I know he shouldn't have," Mercury admitted. "That changes nothing. He made a bad choice, but that doesn't let the bastard who gave him the crap off the hook. Seller's just as guilty as the buyer."

"Yeah, you got a point there," Inferno conceded. "If you need me, I'll help."

"Thanks," Mercury said.

Suddenly, he became aware of a shadow over him.

"Hey, speed freak," a voice boomed from above him.

Mercury looked up and saw what appeared to be the entire basketball team.

"What's up, glitches?" he asked.

"Whatever it is you think you're up to, you better back the hell off," one of the players replied.

"Or else what?" Mercury challenged. "I'm faster than any of you on your best day."

"Don't need to be faster than you," another player replied, "but that would help. No, all we gotta do is tell old lady Alderman that you've been harassing us. She hates your freak ass so much that she'd take it at face value and throw you out of this school."

"Hey, we're trying to find out who got a student in the hospital with bad speed," Inferno said. "And since one of you guys was there, he probably knows something."

"I don't know anything," Malcolm said. "I was there to have a good time and maybe slam it home with a girl. I didn't see nothing."

"That's a double negative," Inferno said. "Saying you didn't see _nothing_ implies that you saw _something._ And besides, you wouldn't be trying to intimidate us if you didn't know anything."

"So are you going to cooperate or are we going to have to play rough?" Mercury asked.

"You wanna ask someone about what happened to your friend, ask D-Rag," Malcolm suggested. "You can't miss him. Guy's got blue hair that looks like he put his finger in an electrical socket."

"Thanks," Mercury replied.

"Sure," Malcolm said before the basketball team walked back to their table.

* * *

After school, Mercury tracked down D-Rag, finding a boy that matched his description.

"You D-Rag?" he asked.

"Who wants to know?" D-Rag asked.

"Mercury."

"Oh, you're him. Him. Talking to me. Holy crap."

"You'd better be prepared to crap your pants if you don't tell me the truth."

"Chill, man, no need to get rough," D-Rag said, holding up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"A kid named Schuyler Drew is in the hospital right now," Mercury stated. "They're detoxing him."

"Aw, crap, I heard of that," D-Rag said. "Was that your friend? I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry for me," Mercury answered. "Be sorry for the glitch that put him in the hospital after I'm through with him."

"So what do you wanna know?" D-Rag asked.

"Who was selling the meth?" Mercury asked.

"I didn't get a good luck at the guy passing around the stuff, but I know there's a meth lab just a few blocks away from the warehouse where the rave was going on," D-Rag replied.

"Thanks," Mercury said. "Hey, why do you call yourself D-Rag?"

"D-Rag, as in 'drag,' as in 'drag racing,'" D-Rag answered. "It's one of my hobbies."

"Ok," Mercury said before speeding back to Titans Tower.

_

* * *

Quicksilver Log, Entry 2: Things look promising. Malcolm Reese pointed me out to D-Rag, who pointed me out to a meth lab near the site of last night's rave. I intend to pay a surprise visit to that place._

_Aside: Was attacked by Speed Demon yet again. It seems The Cage couldn't hold him. Naturally. Will deal with him when the time comes. Right now, I need to teach the defects that made that meth a lesson. A very memorable lesson._

_End log._

* * *

That night, Mercury tore down the streets of Jump City, an azure blur to those that saw him. He was on his way to the lab D-Rag had pointed out to him.

_With my mind on my justice and my justice on my mind,_ Mercury sang to himself.

So focused was he on his mission that he didn't react in time to avoid being waylaid by a black blur. He crashed into a nearby car and forced himself to his feet.

"What the crap?" he asked. He looked up and saw his attacker.

The Black Flash.

* * *

End Notes: Hate to end it there, but cliffhangers are just too much fun. Hey, you all know you love them. You say you hate them, but you really like them because you can huddle amongst yourselves and speculate like mad.

If you didn't know who everybody was, don't worry; I'll explain. The "years ago" scene with Wally West's version of the Flash and Zoom/Hunter Zolomon was taken from Flash #225, only with a different outcome than was shown in the actual comic. Chyre and Morillo are detectives in the Keystone City Police Department and creations of Geoff Johns, who was the writer at the time. Ashley Zolomon is also a creation of Johns, while Alison is a character invented by me.

As I explained at the end of the "Ravaged" arc, Mercury and Speed Demon are refugees from Amalgam Comics that have been adopted and altered by me to fit in the context of this story. Kid Flash/Iris West is a Kingdom Come creation, courtesy of Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Black Flash is semi-original, the name belonging to the avatar of death that comes for speedsters, but my version is different. How different? You'll see.

The subplot involving Mercury's investigation of who gave Schuyler bad meth will continue throughout this arc. Reason? I'm attempting to emulate "teen noir," which is basically a replication of noir elements in a high school setting. Noir typically features characters that are outsiders and that fits the Titans, since their metahuman/hero status cuts them off from their normal peers. Also, it's a genre with which I've recently developed a fascination, so I'm trying my hand at it.

Hope you stick around. In the meantime, feel free to drop a review so I can find out how you feel about this story.


	18. Quicksilver: Slow Lightning

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 2: "Slow Lightning"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The Flash and most related characters don't belong to me, either. Nightstar is owned by DC Comics and Mercury and Speed Demon originate from Marvel/DC with some alterations on my part. Any characters you don't recognize from the main DCU are most likely my creation, but I'll do my best to explain the more comic-exclusive characters to those of you who don't know the comics.

Author's note: For those of you surprised at how dark this arc is, that's how I write. No fluffy lighthearted stuff coming out of this arc . . . not very often, anyway.

If anyone was wondering why those athletes gave in so easily to Mercury despite their tough talk, you just don't mess with someone capable of killing you in the blink of an eye. The basic equation is Force equalsmass times acceleration; if the acceleration is Mach 5 and it's propelling a 115-pound mass, the force will most likely smash the target. Imagine what would happen to a human jaw struck at that velocity with that much weight behind it.

To the anonymous reviewer who has apparently deduced Black Flash's identity, kudos. Now continue reading to see if you're right.

_

* * *

Last night . . ._

* * *

Iris West had returned to the West residence deeply unsettled by her fight with the Black Flash.

"Iris?" her mother Linda asked. "What's wrong? And what are you doing without your jacket?"

"It was dead weight, so I had to ditch it," Iris replied, willing her costume away to reveal normal clothes.

"Were you attacked by one of the Rogues?" her father Wally asked.

"No, I can handle those guys just fine." Iris answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It was someone else. She was dressed like Bart, only her uniform was black and red and the lightning bolt was facing the wrong direction. Her voice . . . it was like a broken record player, speeding up and slowing down randomly. And she was faster than I was."

"A broken record player, speeding up and slowing down randomly?" Wally asked. His face revealed his dismay. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" Iris asked, looking at her father in worry. She turned to her mother, who had the same look of dismay on her face. "Will someone tell me what's wrong?"

"Honey," Linda replied, "we knew someone who spoke like that and who could move faster than a speedster."

"Who?" Iris asked. "Who could possibly be faster than us?"

"Zoom," Wally replied. "He used to be a friend, but some bad things happened to him. He got desperate, messed with technology he had no business messing with, and was knocked out of sync with the timeline, which somehow made him faster than anyone else. Even I couldn't keep up without borrowing speed from the others."

"So what are you saying?" Iris asked. "That the woman who kicked my ass is Zoom on a gender-bend?"

"No, he's dead," Wally answered heavily. "I killed him trying to stop him from killing Linda."

Iris paused to take this information in. Her dad had killed someone?

"I know how it sounds, Iris," Wally admitted. "I spent all this time teaching you how to control your speed so you wouldn't accidentally kill anyone and I did the same thing when I was still the Flash."

"It was an accident, right?" Iris asked.

"Yeah," Wally confirmed. "I didn't want to do it. I wasn't even planning it, but I was so desperate I didn't really pay attention to just how much force I was using. There wasn't even a body left; he was obliterated by his past self's attack when I knocked him into it. I think it was some kind of time paradox having to do with two versions of the same person meeting."

"Was it that time paradox that enabled me and Barry to be born?" Iris asked.

"I don't quite know how it works," Linda answered, "but Jay said that it triggered a 'fissure in time' that undid the damage I suffered from Zoom's attack and restored my pregnancy just in time to have you two."

Iris swallowed and ran her hand through her boyishly cut red hair. "So somebody had to die for me to be born?"

"We didn't want that," Linda said. "We wanted children, but not at the expense of someone else's life, even if it was Zoom's."

Iris sighed. "So whoever this Black Flash is, she's got powers like his and she came after me. Whoever she is, she was close to him."

"There are a few possibilities," Wally said. "On the one hand, it could be some kind of possession. On the other, it could be that somebody's figured out how to replicate the accident that gave Zoom his powers."

"Do you think Black Flash will go after anybody else associated with us?" Linda asked.

"If she's anything like Zoom, yes," Wally replied. "We just have to find a way to warn the others before it's too late."

_

* * *

Tonight . . ._

* * *

His name was Peter Allen. He was the Fastest Boy Alive, no matter what Adam and Barry said. And right now . . .

. . . he was screwed, in the figurative sense.

Mercury leaped into a kick delivered with enough force to smash concrete. Black Flash simply caught his foot, but he whirled into a kick with his other foot, only for that to be caught as well by the black-clad speedster. She proceeded to throw him aside and he crumpled to the ground.

"Hell," he mumbled. "She's fast."

"The son of the fourth Flash," Black Flash hissed.

"How do you know that?" Mercury asked.

"I know all about you," Black Flash replied, her words running together. "All of you." She raised her hand, her fingers positioned as though she was ready to snap them. "Go to hell."

She snapped her fingers . . . and a colossal sonic boom emanated from her, propelling Mercury and nearby parked cars some blocks away. The white-haired speedster ended up tangled up in a heap of vehicular wreckage.

"Damn," he said to himself. "That is one powerful sonic boom."

His musings were interrupted by a black-gloved hand reaching into the wreckage and pulling him out. He found himself staring into the red lenses of the Black Flash.

"Suffer," she snarled, spinning like a crazed top into a throw that left Mercury tumbling on the street before coming to a stop. Seeing a light behind him alerted him that there was a car approaching him. He quickly leaped out of the way, only to realize that the driver was heading toward Black Flash.

"Crap!" Mercury exclaimed, easily catching up to the car. "Get out of here!"

The driver, a young man with a woman next to him, looked at him in surprise.

"You have to get out of here!" Mercury exclaimed. "Turn around and go back wherever you came from! I'm in the middle of a fight!"

"Playing hero as always," Black Flash hissed. "Don't worry. It'll be quick. Painless."

Mercury lunged to stop her, but he was too slow and she set off another sonic boom, knocking the car far away. Mercury ran desperately, trying to reach the couple inside the car and hoping that their airbags worked. Soon enough, he saw the car tumbling in the air and starting to descend. At that velocity, the landing would certainly kill them.

He used his own velocity to propel himself into the air and dive at the car. He vibrated his molecules until he was intangible and passed into the car, rendering the couple inside as immaterial as him. They safely evacuated the car just before it crashed, the impact twisting and crushing it until it was unrecognizable.

"My dad's gonna kill me," the young man said.

"If you tell him what happened, he'll understand," Mercury replied as he sped him and his date several blocks away from the site of the fight.

Unfortunately, Black Flash had gotten ahead of him. She punched him two hundred times in the stomach in one second, causing him to cough up blood.

"Get away from here!" Mercury shouted at the couple.

The couple obeyed, having clearly seen what sort of monstrosity he was dealing with.

Mercury threw a punch at Black Flash, only for her to catch it and twist his wrist until it sprained. He didn't even have time to speed-heal it, as she was on him again with a series of brutal strikes performed many times in the space of mere seconds.

"Screw . . . this . . ." the white-haired speedster snarled and started sucking the speed out of Black Flash. To his surprise, she just laughed and continued striking him at her usual inhuman speeds. "How?"

"You can't steal my speed," Black Flash hissed before kicking him into a nearby building.

Seeing no other choice, Mercury began to run, hoping to give himself time to speed-heal his sundry injuries. He didn't get that time, as Black Flash was calmly standing before him. If it wasn't for the fact that her mask covered her entire face, he was sure he'd see a malevolent smile on her face.

"Trying to get away?" she asked with malicious coyness. She clicked her tongue. "No, no, no. You won't get away so easily. Not until I'm through."

Mercury screamed in desperate rage and set off a sonic boom that propelled a car at her. Black Flash set off yet another sonic boom of her own, reducing that car to mangled scrap.

"You don't have the tools to defeat me," she snarled.

"Wanna bet?" Mercury snarled, shattering every window within a two-block radius with the sonic boom from his speedy charge. Unfortunately, it proved for naught, as Black Flash caught his fist and slammed her knee into his stomach three hundred times in one second. Mercury coughed up blood, much to Black Flash's joy.

"Do you want to give up?" she asked.

Mercury simply used his free hand to flip her off.

"Rude little boy," Black Flash hissed, grabbing his finger and breaking it. Mercury gritted his teeth to prevent himself from screaming. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

She let go of him.

"Remember the pain, boy," she hissed. "Remember the pain and know that it is nothing compared to what I have suffered because of your accursed legacy." She sped away, moving so fast that even Mercury thought she had vanished for a moment.

Mercury rose to his feet, feeling agony in every part of his body. This black-clad "Flash" had broken his finger, sprained his wrist, twisted his ankle, and probably given him some internal injuries from all the vicious punches she had dealt him. He coughed up some more blood.

Still, he had a mission. He took off at about a little past the speed of sound, running back to the meth lab D-Rag had pointed out to him. When he reached it, he found Nightstar and Bladefire there.

"Hey, Mercury," Nightstar greeted. "You look like you got jumped by a gang and beaten to within an inch of your life."

"I wasn't jumped by a gang," Mercury growled. "I was jumped by another speedster." He looked around. "It's empty."

"Yeah, we know," Bladefire replied. "The guys running this place probably figured what happened to Schuyler could be traced back to them and cleared out."

Mercury snarled. "Get out. Get the hell out now."

"Wait, Mercury, I really think –" Bladefire started to say, but Mercury glared at him.

"Don't think," Mercury snarled. "Just get out."

"I think we should listen to him," Nightstar conceded.

"Fine," Bladefire conceded, departing the lab with Nightstar.

Mercury looked around. "This is the place where they cooked up this crap . . . this crap that put Schuyler in the hospital . . ." He began to chuckle maliciously. "If they come back, won't they get an unpleasant surprise?"

He began spinning like a top gone diabolically insane, generating a windstorm powerful enough to tear the lab apart. The winds slammed the tables into the walls and ground them into pieces. They battered the walls themselves, threatening to collapse the building from within. Mercury watched the destruction he had set into motion, an expression of undiluted rage on his face.

* * *

The next day, Mercury had been healed of his physical wounds, due to both his own accelerated metabolism and Samara's powers. However, he was not quite healed of his mental and emotional wounds._

* * *

Quicksilver Log, Entry 3: I tried to find the meth lab D-Rag pointed out. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked by a woman dressed like my dad, only in black and red. I tried everything I had to fight her, but it was useless. She was faster than I was and I couldn't steal her speed. Worse, she beat the crap out of me and caused craploads of property damage. Of course, I contributed to that when I was fighting her._

_By the time she left me alone, it was too late. The glitches that ran that meth lab had cleared out already. I trashed the place, of course. Made me feel better. A bit._

_Don't know how I'm going to go to school with all this going on. But I gotta grin and bear it. End log._

* * *

Before he could go to his first class of the day, he was called into the principal's office.

"What do you want, Alderman?" he snarled.

"I'd like to know why you were interrogating the basketball team yesterday," Principal Alderman replied. "Surely, you know that you Titans signed a contract stating that you would leave the investigation and punishment of student misdeeds to the faculty and administration."

"Get bitten by a snake and die," Mercury snarled.

"What was that, Mr. Allen?" Alderman asked.

"I don't have time for this," Mercury replied. "I have an education to get back to and people to hunt down for selling bad meth."

"And you think these people are in this school," Alderman added. She let out a derisive snort. "Honestly, you are my perfect justification. Like all children, you think you know better, that you're above it all. Worse, you have the powers of gods, which enforces that train of thought, but as long as you are in my school, you will follow my rules. Are we clear on that?"

"Crystal," Mercury answered with a snarl. "Now can I get out of here?"

"You're free to go," Alderman replied. "For now."

Mercury walked out the door, aiming a baleful glare at his principal before returning to his computer class.

* * *

When the lunch period came, he tracked down the basketball team.

"Hey, Pete, what's up?" Michael asked.

"What's up?" Mercury echoed. "What's up is that one of you glitches reported me to the principal."

"It was our coach, man!" Michael exclaimed. "He heard us talking about you yesterday and he thought it might affect our performance, so he reported you in hopes that she could get you to back off."

"Well, tell him it backfired," Mercury answered.

"You wouldn't be coming to us unless the information was bad," Michael said.

"The information wasn't bad," Mercury contradicted. "The monkey-craps that were using the lab cleared out. They must have found out a Titan was investigating them. Now I wanna know if one of you tipped them off."

"We didn't tip them off," Lucas Rodriguez denied.

"Sure," Mercury answered in a tone that suggested he didn't really believe them.

"You gotta believe us," Michael said. "I didn't even know who that guy was! How the freak do you think I tipped him off?"

"You'd better not be lying," Mercury spoke threateningly. "Otherwise, I've got all the time in the world to track you down."

* * *

"I saw that, Peter," Beast Girl said as Mercury sat down to eat.

"Yeah," Mercury grunted.

"I know this thing with Schuyler's got you mad, but you gotta calm down," she said.

"I'll be much calmer when the assholes who were selling that meth get what's coming to them," he answered.

Beast Girl found herself fighting off a shiver. "You're scaring me."

Mercury merely glanced at her before eating.

* * *

After school, the white-haired speedster confronted D-Rag again, this time forgoing niceties and slamming him into the nearest alley wall, controlling his speed aura just enough so that the force of the slam didn't cripple him.

"Whoa, chill!" D-Rag exclaimed.

"Those defects cleared out!" Mercury yelled. "I hope for your sake that you didn't warn them I was coming!"

"I didn't, man!" D-Rag exclaimed. "You think they need me to let them know that putting a kid in the hospital is gonna get the police – not to mention the Titans – on their case?"

Mercury let out a harsh sigh, pulling himself together. "Hell . . ."

"You're hurting real bad from this, aren't you?" D-Rag surmised sympathetically.

"Wouldn't you if it was your friend?" Mercury asked with a ruined smile on his face. He let go of D-Rag and paced in the alley, running his hands through the messy waves of platinum that were his hair. "Sorry."

* * *

He ran to the police station, stopping in the forensics lab. "Hey," he greeted Kate Whistler.

Whistler, a brunette in her mid-thirties dressed in lab clothes, barely looked at him. "Hey, brat."

"Find anything?" Mercury asked.

"Hardly anything left and that was before you threw your little tantrum," Whistler replied.

"You know you're almost irresistible when you're pissed off at me," Mercury quipped.

"Don't you have a girlfriend to try those lines out on?" Whistler asked.

Mercury just chuckled silently. "But have you been able to find anything?"

"Forensics takes a lot longer than you're used to doing things," Whistler answered. She smiled at him. "Don't worry, brat."

"Can't help it," Mercury said. "Worrying's easy to do when you're as fast as I am. But I'll rest easier with beautiful women like you on the force." He sped away.

* * *

When he returned to Titans Tower, he was greeted by Adam Thawne and Jenny Chambers-Tyler, alias Velocity and Jenny Quick. Adam wore a costume identical in design to the one Mercury wore when out crime-fighting; only the colors were black and blue instead of blue and white. Jenny wore a dark red leotard emblazoned with a "Q" made from a circle and lightning bolt and goggles with silver buckled gloves and boots.

"Adam, Jenny," Mercury greeted. "What's the occasion?"

"The occasion is that we're all being attacked," Jenny replied tersely. "She's faster than we are and her speed can't be taken away."

"That woman in black-and-red Flash gear?" Mercury deduced.

"She got you, didn't she?" Adam asked.

"Yeah," Mercury replied. "She was relentless. I tried everything I had, but none of it worked." He paused. "Is Iris all right?"

"She's fine, not for lack of trying on Black Flash's part," Adam answered.

"Black Flash?" Mercury asked. "Is that what she's called?"

"That's what we're calling her," Jenny replied. "She never actually referred to herself as anything other than 'death' and 'vengeance.' Melodramatic bitch."

"How is she doing this?" Mercury asked.

"Wally and Uncle Max have a theory on that," Adam replied. "They can't sense her through the Speed Force, so they believe her powers have nothing to do with it."

"So she's naturally that way?" Mercury asked.

"Even so, we'd still be able to steal her speed on the basis of speed being born of kinetic energy," Jenny cut in. "So her powers have nothing to do with the Speed Force or kinetic energy of any kind."

"I felt something distorting around her," Mercury admitted. "And her voice was just as distorted, sometimes speeding up and other times slowing down."

"Time was what was distorting around her," Jenny answered. "However she's managing it, she's bending time in such a way that it gives off the illusion of super-speed. Unfortunately, it's an illusion that's every bit as good as the real thing, if not better."

"That was Zoom's shtick," Mercury said. "And he's dead. Wait . . . is it his ghost possessing someone?"

"Not quite," Adam replied. "When I fought her, I had the feeling that Zoom was someone close to her."

"There are only two possible candidates," Jenny added. "First, there's the possibility that his wife Ashley went nuts over Zoom's death and decided it was our fault somehow. The other is her daughter Ally; she's the right age."

"Age doesn't mean jack, Jenny," Mercury said. "The Speed Force gives us all increased vitality, which is why our parents look way younger than they actually are."

"Still, it's worth looking into," Adam insisted.

"Sure, but later," Mercury conceded. "I got homework to do."

"So do we," Adam replied. "Come on, Jen."

"See you around, Peter," Jenny added. "3x2(9YZ)4A!"

Triggering her super-speed through the formula, Jenny sped away with Adam.

* * *

In a small dimly lit apartment in Keystone City, a young woman with light, almost blondish brown hair and glowing red irises concentrated, manipulating the temporal energy that flowed through her body into a costume. Skintight black fabric replaced her clothing, accented by red lightning wrapped around her forearms, calves, and beltline and a red lightning bolt on her chest. A black mask covered her face, red lenses allowing her to see and red lightning caps covering her ears.

"So you're the one stealing my thunder," a harsh voice rasped out.

The young woman whirled to confront the voice, finding a man-shaped figure in red lightning-accented black biker leathers. Spikes adorned his shoulders and wrists, but that wasn't the unusual thing about him. The unusual thing about him was that his head was really a burning skull and his exposed hands were fiery bone as well.

"Speed Demon, right?" she remarked. "You were a hero once. What made you go bad?"

"Hero?" Speed Demon asked. "A regrettable time, when I didn't have near as much control as I do now . . . Black Flash."

"Black Flash?" the young woman echoed. "Is that what they call me? Good name."

"I see you like it," Speed Demon remarked.

"So what do you want?" Black Flash inquired.

"I'd like to join forces with you," Speed Demon replied. "You hate the speed brats and their elders as much as I do. If we combine our superior skills, we can eliminate them for good."

"Really . . ." Black Flash murmured, making the word abnormally long. "We have very different reasons for doing what we do. You're just an arrogant demon who got his ass whipped by a pair of children."

"And what are you doing this for?" Speed Demon asked. "No, let me rephrase that. For _whom_ are you doing this?"

"They'll find that out when I'm good and ready," Black Flash replied. She chuckled. "You have yourself a partnership, but I warn you: Betray me and your life is forfeit."

"What makes you so certain you can kill me?" Speed Demon challenged, the flames around his skull flickering ominously. "I'm not a weak _human_ speedster; I am the Gale Force of Hell! There are so many ways I could tear you apart right now, you time-bending wench."

"And there are plenty of ways I could take you out of the picture, 'Gale Force of Hell,' so we're even," Black Flash answered, her words jumbling together.

If the demonic speedster could have, he would have smiled.

* * *

Mercury visited Schuyler at the hospital.

"Awake, huh?" he remarked.

"Yeah," Schuyler answered weakly. "Man, was that stupid of me or what?"

"Uh-huh," Mercury agreed wanly. "I've been looking for whoever it was that gave you that meth."

"That guy . . . his name . . ." Schuyler murmured. "It's . . ."

"No, it's ok," Mercury said. "You don't have to tell me right now. Wait till you get better."

"Sure," Schuyler whispered. "Thanks, man."

"You're welcome," Mercury answered.

* * *

Meanwhile, Max Mercury was meditating. It wasn't the normal kind of meditation; this kind worked by linking his mind and spirit with the Speed Force and letting its energies flow through his body. It allowed him to transcend his physical consciousness and ascend to a higher plane of thought, even if for just a while.

Despite the normally pacifying aspect of speed meditation, Max was still very troubled. The boy who had taken his name out of sheer adoration was not in the best of spirits. His friend was in the hospital because someone had sold him bad drugs and he was determined to avenge him. As if that wasn't enough, a madwoman with powers like and unlike theirs had brutalized him and his peers.

_Who is she?_ Max wondered. _Why does she want us dead so badly?_

"Max . . ." a female voice hissed, dragging out his name maliciously.

Max drew himself out of his meditative trance, slowly of course; he didn't feel like getting the spiritual equivalent of the bends. When he fully awakened from that trance, he saw himself staring before a crow-black nightmare of the Flash.

"Black Flash," he growled.

"Max Crandall," Black Flash snarled. "The oldest speedster in existence. You guide the new generation. Your defeat will show them how weak they really are."

"Or show them how weak you are," Max retorted, shifting into his costume, a white shirt with a large collar and dark blue pants with blue gloves and boots and a blue mask that covered half his face.

"You want to fight me, old man?" Black Flash asked. "Your funeral."

Max Mercury ran out of his backyard, Black Flash in close pursuit. She could have easily outrun him, but she wanted to see where he was going.

When he stopped, they were in a quarry.

"Ah, get us out of the way of innocent bystanders," Black Flash rasped, her words coming on top of each other.

"Yes," Max answered. "Now I can cut loose." He snapped his fingers, triggering a sonic boom that knocked Black Flash back. Black Flash rose to her feet and triggered an even bigger sonic boom, kicking up gravel and rocks and sending them all flying at Max Mercury, who vibrated his molecules into immateriality so that he wouldn't be injured.

"You're better than I expected, old man," Black Flash sneered. She charged Max and rammed him with enough force to crack a rib or two. Max took the pain and grabbed Black Flash, trapping her in a half nelson.

"You can't become immaterial, can you?" Max deduced. "Because your powers don't work that way, do they? You're not a real speedster, are you?"

"Maybe not, but I'm good enough to finish you!" Black Flash answered, her voice alternately speeding up and slowing down. She set off another sonic boom, forcing Max off her. Max flew into the quarry wall and crashed onto the ground. He got up, letting out a soft groan of pain. "Getting too old for this?"

"I may be old, but I know tricks you don't," Max retorted. He increased the density of the air molecules around him and formed them into an invisible fist, one that he punched Black Flash with. "Like this one."

Black Flash rose, but considerably staggered from the hit. "Good one, old man."

Max was about to attack again, when he felt a heavy boot strike him between the shoulder blades. He whirled around to confront his second attacker.

Speed Demon.

"Working together, I see," Max grumbled. "Makes sense; you both hate speedsters so much."

"Hopefully, you're more of a challenge than your protégé," Speed Demon sneered.

"My protégé wiped the floor with you before," Max retorted.

"Yes, but the last time we met, I trounced him," Speed Demon retorted before letting out an unholy roar. He pounded Max Mercury with the molecules that carried the vibrations of his roar, causing the oldest human speedster to crumple in agony. The demonic speedster laughed. "You're pathetic."

"How can you do this, Jace?" Max asked. "You used to fight on our side!"

"Don't refer to me by that name," Speed Demon growled. "That weakling no longer controls this fusion."

Max snickered bitterly. "Of course not. It's full-on Gale Force of Hell now, isn't it?"

Speed Demon growled before kicking Max Mercury over to Black Flash, who sent him flying with another sonic boom attack. Speed Demon jumped into the air and punted Max into the ground. Max once again rose to his feet, in spite of the pain he suffered.

"Why the hell won't you die?" Speed Demon asked irritably.

"I'm a stubborn old man, that's why," Max replied with a snarl.

"You can deal with the old man, Speed Demon," Black Flash said. "I have pressing matters to attend to." She sped away, leaving the two male speedsters to handle each other.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Flash and his predecessor Wally West were in the home of Ashley Zolomon.

"What happened to your daughter?" Flash asked.

"I have no idea," Ashley admitted. "We haven't spoken in some time and that was before she was hospitalized in a coma."

"Do you know how she ended up that way?" Flash asked.

"I don't know," Ashley replied. "The day before, she was rambling on about a way to 'set things right.' She sounded . . . insane, but she hasn't been in the best of spirits since Hunter . . ."

"I know," Wally said sadly.

"You're here because someone's attacking you," Ashley said. "Someone with powers like Hunter's and you want to know if it's Ally."

"Or you," Flash interjected.

Ashley looked at him. "Understandable enough. I was his wife and for all you know, his death might have made me crack, but tell me this: How would I gain the power to avenge Hunter if that were the case?"

"The Cosmic Treadmill," Wally answered. "You knew it was involved in Hunter gaining his powers and you're smart enough to replicate the conditions of that accident."

Suddenly, the front door blew off its hinges, propelled by a sonic boom. Speeding in was a very angry Black Flash.

"Flashes . . . stay away from my mother . . ." she snarled.

* * *

End Notes: Well, that's that for now. In the third chapter, you will see the conclusion of this part of the arc and the beginning of the next part.

Why did I name this chapter "Slow Lightning?" That was what Max Mercury called the Grim Reaper of Speed (Black Flash) in the comics that dealt with him. I figured it fit.

Well, a lot of stuff happened. A lot of exposition, which might have bored you, but the exposition was necessary to advance the plot.

To recap, Adam Thawne is the son of Thaddeus Thawne, the evil clone of Bart Allen in the Impulse comics. In my continuity, Thad reformed, developed a brotherly relationship with Bart, and eventually had a son. Jenny Chambers-Tyler is the daughter of Jesse Quick, one of the few female speedsters in DC Comics canon.

Max Mercury is the oldest human speedster in existence, partially due to the constant forward time-jumping he does. In Flash canon, he mentored Bart Allen and acted as a sort of father figure to him. In my canon, he also trained Thad Thawne as well as their sons.

For everything else, do some goddamn research, will you? If you want to know more about the Flash, do a Wikipedia search for him. It'll point you in some very interesting directions.

That's all the fun for now. Drop a review so I can find out what you think of this chapter.


	19. Quicksilver: Terminal Velocity

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 3: "Terminal Velocity"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Most of the super-speed heroes you will see in this chapter do not belong to me; I'll explain more on them at the end of this chapter. The Titans in this story largely belong to me with the exceptions of Nightstar and Mercury, the former belonging to DC Comics and the latter belonging to Marvel and DC via the Amalgam franchise.

Author's note: The review for last chapter showed me a hard truth; a lot of you reading this arc have no idea what the bloody hell the Speed Force is. Granted, those of you who don't know don't know because you only watch the TV series and haven't bothered to get into the original comics. Nothing against you for that; the comics sometimes get overcomplicated, so I'm going to take the time to explain.

The Speed Force is an extra-dimensional energy field that grants people that aren't naturally fast super-speed. In addition to granting people super-speed, the Speed Force also imbues them with a protective aura that shields them and their clothes from the effects of friction and wind resistance, which is why no speedster ever burned up running at supersonic speeds. Furthermore, the Speed Force doesn't grant its power to beings that are already naturally fast, like cheetahs or yellow sun-charged Kryptonians, or beings that derive speed from divine sources, like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.

And now it's time we concluded the first part of this arc.

* * *

The Flash and Wally West stared down their antithesis.

"Ally?" Ashley uttered. "Is that . . . you?"

"Yes, mother," Black Flash answered. "And these two will pay for what they have done to us."

"Alison, stop," Ashley spoke. "You don't have to do this."

"West murdered Daddy," Black Flash growled, her words running together. "He pays."

"I didn't want to kill your father, Ally." Wally spoke. "I had no choice; he would have killed Linda."

"And for your wife to live, my father had to die?" Black Flash asked.

"I didn't mean to do it!" Wally exclaimed. "If you want to kill me, bring it on, but leave the Flash alone!"

"No," Black Flash answered. "You will all suffer. You will all die."

"How did this happen to you, Ally?" Ashley asked.

"Remember my coma?" Black Flash asked. "It happened when I broke into the Flash Museum and found the blueprints for his Cosmic Treadmill. I understood the technology well enough to create a time-travel device of my own, although I had to cannibalize the Treadmill's tech to do it. Little thing fit around my wrist like a watch. I intended to go back and prevent that bastard Grodd from breaking my father's back, but it turned out that I didn't understand the technology as well as I thought. The damned thing short-circuited and fried me.

"When I woke up, I discovered that I now existed outside of time. My body was in the same space as everyone else, but I was out of sync with the timeline. I could move faster than everyone else, but I wasn't really moving in space; I was moving through time.

"I remembered an old legend of you speedsters. It was the Black Flash, the form Death took when she came for your kind. I took the identity, as a symbol of what I would be to you: death."

"You want to kill us," the Flash spoke. "Why? To avenge your father?"

"He only wanted to make your predecessor better," Black Flash answered. "Only wanted him to be a better hero, to push himself harder to protect innocent people." She whirled upon Wally. "And you turned around and murdered him!"

"I didn't want to," Wally spoke. "I didn't even intend to kill him. I just wanted to stop him from killing Linda."

"Well, it's too damned late to say 'I'm sorry,'" Black Flash growled. "So it's time for you to die." She turned to Ashley. "Get away from here, Mom. I don't want you to see what I'm going to do to these two."

* * *

Wally grabbed Ashley and scooped her up into his arms bridal-style, running to his house with her. He gently lowered her to the ground.

"What's going on?" Barry West asked, looking up from his hand-held video game.

"That's what I'd like to know," Linda agreed.

"No time to explain," Wally replied. "Just keep Ashley safe."

He sped away, wrapping the Speed Force around himself to form it into the red-and-yellow garments that were his trademark as the Flash.

The third Flash ran once more.

* * *

Outside the Zolomon residence, Black Flash triggered a sonic boom that sent Bart Allen flying. The fourth Flash landed roughly on the street, just as a car was passing. He quickly vibrated his molecules, turning himself immaterial just in time to prevent himself from becoming street paste.

"Can't fight here," he muttered, running away from the residential neighborhood as Black Flash gave chase. He was perfectly aware that she could outrun him if she felt like it, but she was keeping just behind him. Desperately, he extended his mind into the Speed Force, reaching out to the other speedsters. _S.O.S.! Black Flash is attacking!_

_Bart!_ Max Mercury exclaimed. _I would help you, but I have my hands full with Speed Demon!_

Bart swore to himself and ran to the quarry where Max and Speed Demon were facing off. Max looked like he was in bad shape, while Speed Demon was relentlessly bringing the pain to the eldest human speedster.

"Leave him alone!" Bart exclaimed, doing a hyper-fast body slam on Speed Demon.

"Worry about yourself, Flash!" Speed Demon exclaimed as the red-clad speedster was pulled off him and thrown into the quarry wall by Black Flash.

"Working together, I see," Max remarked before running to Bart. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," Bart replied as he rose to his feet.

"Bart, do you notice anything strange about the way Black Flash moves?" Max asked.

"She's not moving through space; she's moving through time," Bart replied. "I'm guessing little hops back and forth in the timestream, so she's literally ahead of us by seconds."

"Not just that," Max said. "I see distortions in her wake."

"Distortions?" Bart asked.

"Of time," Max replied. "She's opening holes in time."

"How does that help us?" Bart asked.

"You'll see," Max answered.

"Quit talking and die," Speed Demon growled, generating a ball of hyperkinetic flame. He punched the ball and it splintered into twenty-five smaller orbs that flew at Bart and Max, who dodged them at super-speed.

Suddenly, a series of sonic booms struck the two villainous speedsters.

"Hey," Wally West greeted, garbed as the Flash once more.

"Wally," Bart greeted in relief.

"One more makes no difference," Black Flash snarled, charging the three heroic speedsters. Before they knew it, a flurry of brutal punches and kicks brought them down. "See?"

"See this!" a voice exclaimed, as several blurs of motion attacked her and Speed Demon. Black Flash and Speed Demon might have been faster to a degree than most speedsters, but they weren't just fighting one speedster; they were fighting several. Eventually, they were able to adjust their perceptions to see who was attacking them.

The leader appeared to be a man clad in a navy-and-silver variation of Bart Allen's Flash costume. Accompanying him were Jenny Quick, Velocity, Jenny's mother Jesse Quick (in a scarlet-and-yellow leotard with thigh-high red boots, elbow-length red gloves, and yellow goggles), and Jay Garrick, the original Flash.

"Blitz!" Max exclaimed.

The navy-clad speedster looked at him. "Hey."

The man under Blitz's mask was none other than Thaddeus Thawne, the clone-slash-twin brother of Bart Allen, created in the 31st century by the enemies of the Allen bloodline to destroy the last descendants of Barry Allen – Bart Allen and Jenni Ognats. However, Thad had rebelled when he witnessed the compassion Bart and his allies had for each other, contrasted by how his creators treated him as nothing more than a weapon. He and Bart had become allies, both of them training under Max Mercury and eventually growing as close as brothers.

Finally, Speed Demon caught Jesse's punch and twisted her arm until it wrenched out of her shoulder. Jesse forced her arm back into place and accelerated the healing process until she was back in fighting condition.

Jenny sped away from the scene of the fight . . . only to come back with a vicious right cross that dislocated Speed Demon's jaw.

"How?" he managed to ask.

"Circled the globe to build up the momentum for that," Jenny replied. "Of course, you wouldn't have guessed that since you think all of us human speedsters are so weak compared to you."

Meanwhile, Blitz and Velocity were double-teaming Black Flash, both of them holding her off with impossibly fast strikes. Velocity's strikes were considerably smoother than his father's, but Blitz's strikes were more effective due to his years of experience in such fights.

Black Flash growled in anger and set off another sonic boom, throwing father and son off her.

"Did you see that?" Max asked Bart.

"Yeah," Bart replied. "It's just like what we do."

"Not quite," Max amended. "Time distorted again when she used that attack. My theory is that she's creating warps in the time component of space-time that manifest in the space component as sonic booms."

Before Max could elaborate on this, Black Flash attacked him, Bart, and Wally. All three speedsters accelerated as much as they could without passing into the Speed Force, but Black Flash was still faster and her combat skills were nothing to laugh at considering the "velocity" at which she was moving.

Suddenly, blurs of blue and red began attacking Black Flash.

"Leave-our-fathers-alone-bitch!" a voice shouted.

Black Flash sped up her perceptions again, seeing just who was attacking her.

"Mercury and Kid Flash," she sneered. "Don't you know that you'll just get beaten again?"

"Not this time," Kid Flash retorted as she landed a kick on the time runner. Just as she was about to attack again, Black Flash grabbed her by the throat.

"Let's see," Black Flash mused with a cruel smirk in her tone. "Should I choke you to death? Or should I simply break your neck like your father's beloved predecessor did to his Reverse-Flash?"

Mercury sped to Jay and took his winged helmet, throwing it like a discus at Black Flash's head. Kid Flash vibrated out of the time runner's grip as Black Flash was struck hard in the head by the helmet. Mercury raced to Black Flash and began striking her at various angles, taking advantage of her disorientation. Unfortunately, Black Flash recovered quickly and caught his ankle just as he was about to land another kick on her. She twisted and he twisted with her into a kick with his other foot that struck her in the head, which loosened her grip enough for him to slip loose. He followed up with a series of insanely fast strikes, which ended when Black Flash grabbed his wrist and slammed him in the gut with her knee.

"Mercury!" Kid Flash shouted, body-slamming Black Flash hard enough to force her to let go of her cousin. Kid Flash grabbed Black Flash's arm and spun into a toss that landed her on the ground. With a lithe twist of her hips, Black Flash rose to her feet.

"Time to end this," she snarled, raising both hands in the finger-snapping position. Unleashing a double-handed sonic boom, she blew away everyone in the vicinity, which was basically most of the heroic speedsters and even Speed Demon.

Mercury looked at Black Flash and saw a distortion near her. "What's that?"

"A hole in time," Max replied. "Every time she uses her powers, she creates distortions in the time component of the space-time continuum."

Mercury drew in a breath . . . and ran away.

"Where is he going?" Wally asked.

"Wait," Jay replied simply.

Soon enough, a blue blur returned, slamming Black Flash into one of the warps created by her powers.

"What is he doing?" Kid Flash asked.

"He's mine!" Speed Demon roared and sped into the same warp. The other speedsters raced after him, but only Wally, Bart, Max, and Iris were able to make it through before the warp closed.

"Crap," Velocity muttered.

"They better be all right," Jenny uttered.

"You took the words out of my mouth," Jesse agreed.

* * *

The Flashes, Max Mercury, Kid Flash, and Speed Demon arrived at the scene of a brutal battle outside of time. Neither Mercury nor Black Flash were holding anything back, fiercely pummeling each other. For each blow one would land, the other would retaliate in kind. Black Flash was still faster, but Mercury had the superior fighting skill and experience.

Speed Demon immediately lunged at Mercury, his fist vibrating. Bart raced after him, knowing what that vibrating fist meant.

Mercury barely evaded the punch in time, leaving Black Flash to take the hit. The black-clad time runner cried out in pain as the vibrating punch warped her into near-insubstantiality.

"What the hell just happened?" Kid Flash asked.

"Speed Demon's molecular vibrations must have messed with her temporal vibrations," Wally replied.

Suddenly, black clouds gathered in the featureless sky above the speedsters and lightning struck from those clouds.

"What in the crap?" Mercury wondered.

"Time storm," Max replied.

When the time storm finished, two very familiar figures had landed before them. One was dressed in a costume resembling Wally's, only the eyes weren't covered by lenses, revealing that they were blue. Additionally, his lightning belt was straight instead of resembling two lightning bolts connecting and his ear-caps and boots were winged. The other was dressed in an identically designed costume; only the colors were reversed, yellow and red instead of red and yellow and a black circle instead of a white circle.

"Oh, no," Wally uttered when he saw the yellow-clad man.

Bart was looking more at the red-clad man. "Grandpa?"

"Well, Barry, we've found ourselves in quite a conundrum, haven't we?" the yellow-clad man remarked.

Barry Allen, the second man to bear the mantle of the Flash and the mentor of Wally West, glared at his opposite.

Speed Demon laughed, garnering the attention of both the second Flash and his reverse.

"I get it," he spoke. "Disrupting the stability of Black Flash's time-speed created a temporal flux that brought you two here." If he could have, he would have smiled evilly. "Professor Zoom, would you like to help me and Black Flash in bringing hell to your enemy's legacy?"

"Don't mind if I do," Professor Zoom replied with a savage smirk on his face.

Barry Allen zoomed to his protégé and grandson. "You two make good Flashes. See you changed the outfit a bit."

"Yeah, Grandpa," Bart said. "We like having our own style."

Barry gave an appreciative glance at Kid Flash and Mercury. "And you've had kids, too." Speaking directly to the two young speedsters, "I'm sure you've done your parents proud."

"You have no idea," Wally spoke with a smile.

"We'll catch up later," Max said. "Right now, we take care of them."

"Six on three," Black Flash rasped. "I consider those good odds."

"I think I like you, woman," Professor Zoom remarked.

Max and Barry fought Professor Zoom, while Wally and Kid Flash battled Black Flash, and Bart and Mercury took on Speed Demon.

Professor Zoom threw his entire weight behind an eight-hundred-mph punch that would have shattered Barry's jaw if Barry hadn't caught his wrist and turned his momentum against him, throwing him into the ground. Zoom just got up again and rushed Barry again, only to get punched by Max Mercury.

Wally and Kid Flash tag-teamed Black Flash, who retaliated with swift, brutal strikes. She punched Wally four hundred times in the space of four seconds, cracking several ribs. Kid Flash jumped on her back and began beating her at the speed of sound. Black Flash merely grabbed her and flipped her over before dropping her in a brutal power slam.

"Iris!" Wally exclaimed, leaving the healing of his ribs unfinished to attack his distaff opposite. He began punching her with the speed and fury of a hurricane. "Do what you want to me, but leave my daughter out of it!"

"She's in it already," Black Flash retorted as she blocked Wally's attacks. "You brought her into it simply by bringing her into this world."

"She's innocent!" Wally yelled. "_I'm_ the one who killed your father, so take out your pain and anger on me!"

"Gladly," Black Flash smirked as she tore into him. "Unfortunately, just killing you won't be enough. Your entire legacy has to be destroyed."

Bart and Mercury double-teamed Speed Demon, who was clearly not pulling his punches. He dislocated Bart's shoulder with one punch and jostled Mercury's insides hard enough for him to cough out blood.

Mercury ducked into a low sweeping kick to knock Speed Demon's feet out from under him, but Speed Demon simply stomped his ankle, nearly breaking it.

"Peter!" Bart exclaimed, tackling Speed Demon.

"Want me to dislocate your other shoulder, Flash?" the demonic runner asked cruelly.

Bart retaliated with a punch to Speed Demon's flaming skull. The hellfire singed him, but it was worth it to clock the bastard.

Unfortunately, this seemed to only make him angrier. With a demonic howl, the hell-born speedster delivered a series of brutal punches at supersonic speeds, causing the fourth Flash to cough up blood all over the inside of his mask.

Mercury saw the fabric of his father's mask darken with horror in his shielded eyes. Despite the pain in his ankle, he body-slammed Speed Demon, allowing Bart the chance to pull up his mask and regain his breath. Once he did that, he forced his shoulder back into place and speed-healed it.

Speed Demon rolled them over so that he was on top and began throttling Mercury, who vibrated into intangibility and re-solidified to brutally kick his hellish rival. Unfortunately, that kick had come from the foot that had an injured ankle, causing him to collapse in pain.

"That was stupid of me," he muttered as he began speed-healing his ankle.

"Yes, and you're going to die for it," Speed Demon replied as he summoned a hyperkinetic fire orb. This time, instead of splitting it into twenty-five smaller "speed bullets," he threw the orb as it was. Mercury was barely able to roll out of the way before the orb obliterated a sizable portion of ground.

"We need help!" Kid Flash exclaimed.

"And I know just where to get it," Wally answered. "Hope this works." He vibrated his fist and swung it at Black Flash, who merely bent to the side to evade and twisted into a death grip on the third Flash. "Iris!"

Kid Flash vibrated the molecules of her hand and charged at Black Flash, intending to impale her through the back. Unfortunately, Black Flash seemed to anticipate this and spun into a back kick that knocked her younger counterpart back.

Wally vibrated out of Black Flash's grip and spun to punch her in the gut. Black Flash was able to block that, but Kid Flash surprised her by slamming her vibrating fist into her back. Again, the time runner screamed in pain as her temporal vibrations spiraled out of control.

"You think this'll work?" Kid Flash asked.

"It has to," Wally replied. "We might have the numbers, but these guys have sheer brutality on their side and two of them are faster than we are."

Another time storm started and when it ended, two females were standing in the midst of the battle. Both of them were dark-skinned, but the younger of the two seemed to be considerably lighter. Both had amber eyes and hair tied in ponytails, but the older female's hair was brown and the younger female's was black. The older female was dressed in a blue running suit with a thick white stripe down the middle and a yellow symbol on her chest. The younger female was in a black running suit with a thick blue stripe down the middle and a similar yellow symbol on her chest.

"XS!" Bart exclaimed, addressing the older female.

"X-Cel!" Mercury exclaimed, addressing the younger female.

The two female speedsters looked at the father-and-son duo. "Bart, looking good," XS remarked. "But what's going on here?"

"Your fool cousin thought bringing you here might save his sorry life," Black Flash hissed, her words blurring together.

"Black Flash," X-Cel spoke. "The logs in the 31st century don't speak well of you. If they're accurate, you're a dangerous maniac who might be even worse than your father."

"My father died trying to make _him_ better!" Black Flash roared, her words simultaneously blurring together and dragging out as she pointed at the third Flash.

X-Cel laughed. "Better? You call attempting to murder his wife and children making him a better hero?"

At this point, Max, Barry, and Professor Zoom took notice of the newcomers.

The Reverse-Flash smiled maliciously. "You woman speedsters . . . all so pretty. As pretty as Iris . . . or Fiona."

"Leave them alone, Thawne," Barry snarled.

At this point, it descended into a hyper-speed free-for-all.

Speed Demon viciously attacked the heroic speedsters, unleashing hyperkinetic fireballs that destroyed sections of ground when they missed and accelerated the molecular vibrations of the speedsters to painful levels when they connected, as Wally found out the hard way.

He screamed as the unholy flame seared his molecules and accelerated them beyond his control.

An enraged Kid Flash attacked the hellish runner with hundreds of punches and kicks thrown in the space of seconds. Speed Demon simply blocked her attacks as X-Cel jumped on his back. He fell backward, only for her to flip off him and twist into a kick that would have brought him down if he hadn't grabbed her ankle and dragged her behind him.

"Ooh, monstrous," Professor Zoom complimented with a savage smirk on his face.

Barry broke off his battle with his opposite number to run to Wally. He shoved his hands inside Wally's painfully vibrating body and attempted to use his own vibrations to stabilize his successor. Unfortunately, it backfired and the flame threw him back.

Max tried next, using his vibrations to concentrate the flame and draw it to him.

"Speed Demon!" he shouted as he held the flame in his hands.

"You think you can control my power?" the demonic speedster challenged arrogantly.

Max snarled and sped toward Speed Demon, holding the flame like a knife. Speed Demon simply stood there with his skull tilted, not even attempting to avoid the charge.

"Uncle Max, look out!" Mercury shouted.

Max finally saw the reason Speed Demon hadn't bothered to dodge – he had a vibrating flame knife of his own ready for the eldest human speedster. Speed Demon lunged to attack, but his knife found its mark in the gut of the younger Mercury.

"PETER!" Max, Wally, Bart, Iris, XS, and X-Cel cried out in horror as the platinum-haired speedster collapsed in agonizing vibrations.

"Why?" Max asked his protégé.

"Why not?" Mercury managed to answer simply.

"Hold on," Max said as he knelt beside Mercury. As Max worked to heal Mercury's injury, the other heroic speedsters attacked Speed Demon.

The five, along with Barry Allen, piled on Speed Demon, assaulting him from all angles. While Speed Demon was faster, there were six human speedsters and one of him, not to mention that they were all attacking him at once, so a few hundred punches made it through every now and again.

Black Flash jumped into the fray and began savagely beating the speedsters. "Weakling!" she roared at Speed Demon.

"Savage little girl, isn't she?" Professor Zoom commented.

Suddenly, he was attacked by two blue-and-white blurs. The Reverse-Flash attacked back, accelerating enough to see that his attackers were none other than Max Mercury and Mercury.

"I'm all better now," Mercury snarled. With a single kick – from his uninjured foot this time – he propelled Professor Zoom into a sonic boom generated by Black Flash to knock the heroic speedsters off her. The Reverse-Flash was caught in its wake and that cracked open a hole in time, drawing him back into the timestream.

"That's my cue to leave," Barry said. "I hate abandoning a fight, but I have the feeling you'll be fine without me . . . and Professor Zoom is too dangerous to be left alone." He jumped through the same time hole and reentered the timestream.

Black Flash growled and continued attacking the remaining speedsters.

"How the hell do we stop her?" Kid Flash asked. "We can't steal her speed because she's running on time, not kinetic energy!"

"Time," Mercury replied. "That's how we stop her." He lunged at Black Flash, grabbing her tightly and running for the time hole.

"Mercury, what are you doing?" Bart Allen asked.

"Stopping her the only way that'll work," Mercury replied.

Black Flash thrashed fiercely in Mercury's grip, preparing to use a sonic boom to throw him off her. Mercury grabbed her mask and ripped it off, then removed his.

"Look at me!" he yelled. "This vendetta you've got against us . . . it's destroyed you. You're nothing but a murderous monster now!"

As he said this, he charged into the time hole, running into the timestream with Black Flash. But he wasn't returning to their era.

He was running down the path of the very timeline itself.

* * *

"Where are you taking me?" Black Flash asked, her glowing red eyes staring wildly at him.

"Somewhere you can't hurt anyone anymore," Mercury replied grimly.

In a logical universe, Mercury should have been blasted into some far-flung era by Black Flash. However, Mercury wasn't operating on logic. He was operating on desperation, which was the only reason he could have made such a move.

He continued to run down the timeline, barely looking at the events passing him by. He had one destination, which he believed would be the only way to contain someone of Black Flash's nature.

Never mind that it would mean the end of them both.

Finally, Mercury could see it – the large, gaping maw of nothingness that waited to consume the universe when it reached the end of its days.

"No!" Black Flash exclaimed in horror, renewing her struggles.

Mercury simply held on tighter, taking the blows Black Flash landed on him as he continued racing toward that mouth of black nothing.

Then they reached it . . . and knew no more.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the zone that existed outside of time, Max fell to his knees in sorrow.

"I can't sense him anymore," he uttered.

"I know," Wally added mournfully. "I can't sense him anymore, either."

"You mean . . . he's . . ." X-Cel spoke, unable to finish her sentence.

"Ha!" Speed Demon exclaimed. "Fool mortal! Threw his own worthless life away to save your worthless lives! Not that it matters, because you're all going to die, too!"

"Shut . . . _UP!_" Bart roared, charging Speed Demon at Mach 10 and landing a blow that would have surely taken any human's head off their shoulders. He followed that blow up with hundreds more, each one landing ferociously on the demonic speedster.

Finally, Speed Demon caught his punch. "I let you have that because you were grieving. But my leniency doesn't last long." He punched Bart in the stomach, setting off a kinetic explosion that threw the fourth Flash into the wall separating the combatants from the timestream.

Kid Flash, Wally, XS, and X-Cel piled onto Speed Demon, unchained fury evident in their attacks. Speed Demon simply laughed maliciously as they pummeled him before setting off a hyperkinetic explosion that threw them all off him.

Max Mercury began walking toward Speed Demon. "Leave him to me."

He summoned the knife of hyperkinetic flame as he walked toward the hell-born runner, who just stared him down.

"Max, what are you doing?" Wally asked.

"What I should have done sooner," Max replied simply.

"Come on, old man!" Speed Demon roared. "I'm not afraid of you!"

"You should be," Max answered tonelessly, never ceasing his steady walk.

Speed Demon watched him closely for any signs of wavering or uncertainty. To his consternation, he found none.

_I'm the Gale Force of Hell,_ he thought. _The fastest on Earth, in heaven, or in hell. No one can match me. No one. I shouldn't be afraid of this fool mortal._

But he was and no self-pep talks would change that.

Finally, Max was directly in front of him.

Speed Demon glared at him, silently challenging him.

"Nothing but bravado, demon," Max spoke. "You're afraid, but you don't want to admit it. After all, you're the Fastest Demon in Hell, so you shouldn't be afraid of a mere human."

"Shut up," Speed Demon growled.

"Why?" Max asked. "You know it's true."

"Shut up!" Speed Demon repeated, louder this time, and he aimed a killing punch at Max's head, which the eldest human speedster ducked. He moved to the side and stabbed Speed Demon with the hyperkinetic flame knife, eliciting a scream from the hellish speedster. "What are you doing?"

Max twisted the knife, pulling the demon's essence into it. As the process continued, the flame of his skull and hands exhausted itself and soft, pinkish flesh emerged on them. Eyes emerged within sockets, molten gold in color, and soft, thin lips rimmed his mouth. Red-streaked, slightly spiky black hair grew on his head.

Finally, Max pulled the demon's essence out completely, leaving behind a young man of nineteen, collapsed on the ground and dressed in a denim jacket over a red shirt and khaki pants. The essence writhed and struggled in his grip. Max ran as fast as he could, building up the velocity he needed to approach the Speed Force. This time, he wasn't trying to finally enter its embrace . . . he was imprisoning a dangerous force.

As soon as he saw the Speed Force wall, he raced closer to it as the core of evil in his hand struggled even more fiercely. Max slammed the demonic essence through the wall.

"Barry, Johnny, you two better take good care of this monster for me," he muttered before returning to the zone where the other speedsters were waiting for him.

* * *

"So there was a human in there?" Kid Flash asked.

"Yes," Max replied. "He traded his soul for that of someone he loved, and damned himself in the process. Up to a certain point, he tried to use the power for good, but the demon's will overpowered his own."

"What's his name?" XS asked.

"Jace," the former host of Speed Demon replied. "Jace Lawrence."

"We'd all . . . best be headed back to our own eras," Max replied.

"Besides, I'm sure the Legion of Superheroes misses you," Bart added to XS and X-Cel.

"Yeah," X-Cel answered sadly.

* * *

Back in Keystone City, another time storm had begun. Lightning crashed in the blackened skies.

"Hey, the weather report didn't say anything about a storm tonight!" a passerby shouted.

When the storm stopped, a figure stood in the middle of the street. His features were obscured by the darkness, but the familiar shape of lightning caps emerged from where his ears would be. A car drove toward him, the headlights illuminating tarnished silver and blue so dark it could easily pass for black. The driver slammed his brakes to avoid running over the mysterious figure, but by the time he was able to stop, the figure was already gone.

* * *

End Notes: Mercury is dead. After all, who survives the freaking end of time/the universe? Or is he? You'll just have to wait as this arc further develops.

Now to explain the numerous speedsters that appeared in this story.

Wally West you'll definitely know if you watched Justice League or read The Flash. Bart Allen you'll know if you read The Flash, Impulse, Young Justice, or the first 32 issues of Geoff Johns' Teen Titans. Jay Garrick is the original Flash and you'd know him if you read The Flash or JSA (Justice Society of America).

Barry Allen is a little more complex, so all I'll say is that he's the Flash that came before Wally and is essentially the patron saint of the Flash family. Professor Zoom/Reverse-Flash is Barry's time-traveling foe and the inspiration for Hunter Zolomon's Zoom.

Jesse Quick is a rather obscure character, as she is one of the few female speedsters and hasn't gotten nearly as much exposure as her male counterparts. Jenny is her OC daughter.

Blitz is Thaddeus Thawne, a.k.a. Inertia, Bart Allen's evil clone from the Impulse comics. In my continuity, he turned good. Velocity/Adam is his OC son.

Max Mercury is a speedster who came to the present via repeated jumps in time from the past trying to reach the Speed Force. Throughout the Impulse comics, he was a mentor to Bart Allen, until he got himself possessed by Jay's Reverse-Flash, the Rival, and his spirit stuck in the Speed Force. In my continuity, that never happened; he simply leaped into the future again.

XS is Bart Allen's cousin from the future, which happens to be where he was born as well; he was just brought to the present because his super-speed was accelerating his aging to the point he'd live his life in the space of weeks if not days. X-Cel is a character from the Amalgam Universe, just like Mercury, only altered to fit the DC canon.

Since Speed Demon is an amalgam of Flash, Etrigan, and Ghost Rider, I decided to go with the idea of what might have happened if the Rider's human host hadn't been able to overcome his demonic alter ego and transplanted it to him.

Black Flash, as I've stated before, is half-original. The look is inspired by the actual Black Flash, as she stated herself, but the powers are based on Zoom's. Basically, the character of Ally Zolomon is all that really belongs to me when it comes to Black Flash.

The Iris Professor Zoom spoke of is not Iris West, the daughter of Wally's incarnation of the Flash, but rather Iris West-Allen, the aunt of Wally West and the wife of Barry Allen. Fiona is another love interest of Barry that emerged after Iris West-Allen was seemingly killed (she got reborn in the 31st century).

Anyway, that's all out of me. See you next chapter.


	20. Quicksilver: Swift Vengeance

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 4: "Swift Vengeance"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. A lot of the characters in this story don't belong to me, but some of them do. You might be able to tell who belongs to me and who doesn't if you're a comic book geek/aficionado like me, but the casual Titans viewer/comic reader will be quite confused, I think.

Author's note: Mercury is dead. Let me repeat that one more time. Mercury is dead. However, death is never a permanent end for a lot of comic characters, so why should we assume the same about Mercury?

Please note that this is where the second half of this arc, the half that is derived from The Dark Flash Saga, begins. Whereas the first half was only very loosely based on Chain Lightning, the second half is more closely related to Dark Flash. However, it won't be a word-for-word translation; that would just be totally uncreative. No, I intend to introduce my own wrinkles here.

Also, for those of you who thought the other Titans needed more of a role, you'll see them more prominently in this chapter and following chapters of this arc.

Now let's begin.

* * *

Wally, Bart, Max Mercury, Jace Lawrence, and Kid Flash returned to the timeline, Max Mercury supporting Jace and XS and X-Cel having returned to the 31st century.

"Who's he?" Jay asked.

"Liberated from the Demon," Max replied.

"Where's Mercury?" Velocity asked.

"He's . . . lost to us," Max answered.

"What the hell do you mean?" Velocity asked, an uncharacteristic impatience showing in his tone.

"He used one of Black Flash's time warps to run a race with her," Max explained. "A race that cost him his life."

"You mean the idiot ran all the way to the end of time with her," Jenny Quick spat out.

"He reasoned that it was the only way to stop Black Flash," Bart said.

A heavy silence passed over the speedsters.

"I should take Jace home," Max finally spoke. "I'm certain his family misses him terribly."

"I'll give Ashley the news," Wally said. "She deserves to know what happened to her daughter."

"I'll . . . I'll go back to Carol," Bart added with grim sorrow in his tone, speeding away.

"And the rest of us should go back as well," Jay continued. "The world won't stop because we lost one of our own."

"Someone has to tell the Titans," Blitz said.

"I'll go," Kid Flash offered.

With that decided, everyone sped off on their own paths.

* * *

"Ally was never a happy child," Ashley explained to Wally. "Not since Hunter and I separated. She only got worse after he died. She became antagonistic toward everyone around her, always getting into fights with the kids in her school. She particularly had a habit of harassing any member of the Flash Fan Club she found in her school.

"When she got into college, she surprised me by majoring in metahuman studies with a particular focus on the history of speedster heroes and villains. I didn't have very many illusions about what she was doing; she'd already marked you as an enemy and you know what Sun Tzu says about enemies."

"Yeah," Wally agreed tonelessly. "The original Batman practically lived by that guy's book."

"I wish things could have turned out better for her," Ashley spoke, wiping away tears. "If we'd been able to save Hunter from himself, maybe Alison wouldn't have followed in his path."

"I know," Wally murmured sadly.

* * *

Elsewhere in Keystone City, Bart returned to Carol, having changed back to his normal clothes beforehand.

"Bart?" Carol greeted hesitantly. "Why do you have that look in your eyes?"

"It's Peter," Bart replied.

"Peter?" Carol echoed, peering at him through her glasses. "Where is he?"

"He's . . ." Bart started to say but didn't have the heart to finish. He didn't have to, as Carol understood what had happened to their son just by the agonized look in his eyes.

They held each other tightly, tears seeping out of their closed eyes.

* * *

In Jump City, Kid Flash had explained everything to her cousin's teammates.

". . . and that's it," she finished.

Samara quickly put her hood up so no one would see her tears.

Raziel said nothing, his face as empty of expression as a wall.

Inferno sighed heavily.

Tears openly streamed down Nightstar's face, as even despite all her Bat-training, she could not repress the natural instinct of her mother's people to never hide their feelings. Bladefire pulled her in close and let her weep silently, tears seeping out of his own eyes.

As for Beast Girl, she was in complete and utter disbelief.

"He can't be dead!" she exclaimed tearfully.

"I felt it," Kid Flash replied. "We couldn't sense him anymore."

"He can't be dead!" Beast Girl repeated. "Not him!"

Kid Flash simply reached out and pulled the smaller girl into her arms. "I miss him, too, Terri. I miss him, too."

* * *

Back in Keystone City, several of the Flash's Rogues were hanging out in their favorite bar, which had been unofficially named "The Rogue Bar."

The Rogues in question were Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, his sister Golden Glider, Trickster, Heat Wave, and Mirror Mistress. All of these Rogues had derived their names and gimmicks from the original bearers, now retired, deceased, or imprisoned. Some of them had unique twists on their predecessors' names and equipment, like actual metahuman abilities. Captain Boomerang was capable of bursts of super-speed. Golden Glider could "skate" on the air and Mirror Mistress could manipulate reflective surfaces.

Right now, they were all just having a good time, drinking and exchanging stories. Whereas some of them were a little young for alcohol, they settled for soda.

What they didn't know was that they were about to receive the shock of a lifetime.

"Go ahead, Trickster," Captain Boomerang drawled. "Tell us all about how you terrorized that little contingent of nuns back when you were in Catholic school."

"It was real simple," Trickster bragged. "I just set up little T-bombs around that big cross and I let the fuses run out on all of them. That cross blew apart like a high-caliber shotgun blows a guy's head off! And all those little nuns and priests scampered about yelling that the Devil was coming after them!"

He laughed raucously.

Captain Cold glared at him with disgust.

"Yes, I would agree that this is one disgusting piece of dirt," a voice remarked.

The six Rogues turned . . . and saw Mercury, but he looked a little different.

For one thing, he was taller by about two or three inches. Second, he was wearing a tarnished silver suit with a thick, lightning-edged stripe of blue so dark it could pass for black down the middle. Fingerless gloves and boots matching the stripe covered his hands and feet and a matching mask covered part of his head, leaving his hair, some of his forehead, and the lower half of his face exposed. The mask came with semitransparent silver-white goggle-like lenses over his eyes and tarnished silver lightning caps over his ears.

"Mercury?" Captain Boomerang wondered.

"Hey, speed freak, wanna drink with us?" Heat Wave offered.

"No thanks," "Mercury" replied grimly before punching the table. To the Rogues' surprise, the table obliterated itself upon contact with "Mercury's" fist.

"What the hell?" Captain Cold exclaimed as he and the other Rogues jumped out of their seats.

"You wanna play like that, huh?" Trickster sneered, reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out four yo-yos all looped around his fingers. "Ok, player."

Trickster shot all four yo-yos at the Mercury doppelganger, who bent backwards to avoid them. Surprisingly enough, the yo-yos looped around and came back at him. They twisted like serpents, binding his arms and legs.

"Got you now, bitch!" he yelled. "Now I'm gonna slice you like butter!"

"You shouldn't broadcast what you intend to do to someone," the Mercury doppelganger advised coldly. He vibrated out of the yo-yos' grip. "Especially when you can't do it."

"Walking the dog, you motherless –" Trickster announced as he rolled the yo-yos on the floor, said yo-yos spinning so fast that they were like buzzsaws. Unfortunately, the Mercury doppelganger merely lent so much speed to the yo-yos that they burst into pieces. "What the crap? You were never able to do that!"

The Mercury doppelganger didn't answer, merely watching as Trickster chewed some bubblegum. He blew it into a bubble and released, letting it float toward the dark speedster.

"Is that supposed to frighten me?" the dark Mercury asked.

"Just wait," Trickster retorted.

"No," the dark Mercury countered as he walked to the bubble and touched it. Instantly, the bubble exploded and covered him in acidic gum.

Trickster laughed. "You're gonna be nothing but bones soon, and even that won't be around much longer!"

The dark Mercury spun into a tornado, flinging the acidic gum off him in all directions, forcing the Rogues to duck or attempt to block it. Captain Cold created an ice barrier with his cold gun and Mirror Mistress held up a mirror as a shield.

The non-Rogue patrons began to flee the bar, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of the fight between the Rogues and this mysterious speedster.

"Just me and you," the dark Mercury remarked.

"Guess what, 'Dark Mercury'?" Captain Boomerang sneered, holding up a number of razor-edged boomerangs. "Not impressed." He threw all the boomerangs at super-speed.

Dark Mercury caught every single boomerang with greased-lightning reflexes.

"Guess what? Neither am I."

He threw all six boomerangs at each Rogue, most striking with brutal accuracy. One lodged itself in Trickster's shoulder. Another punched through Captain Cold's ice barrier and stabbed him in the thigh. The third sliced Golden Glider's face. The fourth embedded itself in Heat Wave's arm. Captain Boomerang managed to dodge the fifth and Mirror Mistress used her mirror to warp the sixth away.

"Bastard!" Captain Cold yelled as he pulled the boomerang out of his thigh. He painfully rose to his feet. "We're gonna jack you up. Make you hurt bad!"

"I'm so scared," Dark Mercury deadpanned before charging him.

Captain Cold froze the floor beneath Dark Mercury's feet as he ran. Unfortunately, Dark Mercury merely redirected his inertia into a brutal clothesline that knocked the icy Rogue down, rattling his skull.

Golden Glider skated on the icy patch of floor before launching herself into a flying kick aimed at Dark Mercury. He merely grabbed her foot and spun into a throw that landed her behind the bar. She fell into a wall of beverages, which poured all over her when her impact caused their glass containers to shatter.

Trickster pulled the boomerang out of his shoulder with a loud swear before lobbing it at Dark Mercury, who whirled and caught it.

"Nice try."

Heat Wave used his uninjured arm to shoot his wrist-worn flamethrower at Dark Mercury. The platinum-haired speedster dodged the jet of flame and charged him. Heat Wave fired again, but Dark Mercury slid out of the way and stabbed the gasoline tank the pyromaniac wore on his back with the boomerang Trickster had thrown at him. He slashed the boomerang upward before pulling it out, leaving the gasoline to flow out of the gash he'd made.

"Damn it!" Heat Wave exclaimed. "You son of a bitch!"

Dark Mercury drew back his fist and punched Heat Wave, using the blow to set off a kinetic burst that knocked him into a wall . . . and unconscious.

Trickster threw a handful of T-bombs at Dark Mercury, who jumped out of the way and let them explode. He threw the boomerang at Trickster again, this time getting him in the chest.

"Stay down this time."

Suddenly, a dome of mirrors formed around Dark Mercury and the images of Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang were in every one of them.

"Hello, Dark Mercury," she greeted.

Every image of Captain Boomerang raised a boomerang. Every image threw his boomerang at Dark Mercury.

Boomerangs flew every which way at the dark speedster, all thrown at super-speed. Dark Mercury might have been insanely fast, most definitely faster than his predecessors at his age, but could he dodge boomerangs being thrown at him at super-speed from all sides?

The darkly clad speedster dodged the boomerangs like unholy lightning. Even as some managed to score glancing strikes, cutting his arms, sides, and legs, the cuts quickly sealed themselves. He sped through the mirror dome, smashing as many mirrors as he could reach.

"You'll need to do more than that to stop us," Mirror Mistress taunted.

"How about this?" Dark Mercury suggested, lunging into one of the mirrors and matching his vibration patterns to the patterns of the zone within the mirrors. Once inside, he began speeding through the mirror portals until he found Mirror Mistress and Captain Boomerang. "Let's try this again."

"This is my world," Mirror Mistress stated. "You're not welcome here."

"Funny, I usually go where I please," Dark Mercury answered before attacking.

* * *

Later that night, the Keystone City police had arrived at the Rogue Bar, only to find it wrecked and the six Rogues in varying states of physical abuse.

"Who the hell did this to you guys?" a detective on the scene, Janice Wendell, asked.

"Mercury . . ." Captain Cold replied. "I'm gonna make that speed freak pay for what he did to my sister. Gonna get medieval on his ass."

The Flash had arrived at the scene a split second later.

"Liar!" he snarled, grabbing Captain Cold by the throat. "I won't let you drag my – Mercury's name through the mud!"

"I ain't lying, Flash," Captain Cold wheezed out. "It was him, but he was different. Taller. Wore a different costume. More vicious. None of you were ever that brutal with us."

"Flash, let him go," Detective Wendell ordered.

The Flash growled low in his throat and released the cold-wielding Rogue, allowing him to be wheeled into the ambulance on a stretcher like his five compatriots.

"It couldn't be Mercury," the Flash said. "He wouldn't do things like this."

"Well, it was definitely someone with super-speed that put these guys through the ringer," Detective Wendell replied.

"You don't get it, Detective," the Flash stated. "Mercury's dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Flash," Detective Wendell spoke. "Truly, I am, but if Cold and his Rogues weren't hallucinating, then either the kid pulled that resurrection trick you heroes tend to do from time to time or he didn't die like you thought."

"Or it's someone else," the Flash added. "Someone with the powers and obviously able to imitate Mercury physically."

* * *

A week passed. In that week, the Titans held a private funeral on Titans Island for their fallen speedster. As with Starfire's funeral, Titans past and present were there, along with their allies.

"Peter Maxwell Allen was the greatest friend and the greatest ally anyone could ask for," Bladefire spoke. "For one thing, he kept everything in perspective. Not all of us had particularly happy lives, as I'm sure you can all attest to, but he kept us from brooding too much over that. He reminded us that we had more to live for than just beating up super-villains; that we were human too and we should act like it.

"His greatest trait, now that I think about it, was just the fact that he cared so much about everyone around him. When they hurt, he hurt. When they were happy, he was happy, and he made sure as best as he could that they were happy. He would always stick around a few minutes longer to console the survivors of a crime we were investigating and he would always check up on them every so often afterward to see how they were hanging.

"He was . . . precious to all of us. My mother's people had a philosophy when it came to death: Don't mourn the death, celebrate the life. Peter went out protecting the people he loved and we should always honor that."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the city, Dark Mercury was routing Multiplicity, the son of Billy Numerous. The army of red-clad doppelgangers engulfed the darkly clad speedster, only to be viciously tossed off by a sonic boom. He redirected their motion so that they all slammed into each other, forcing them to recombine by way of manipulating the kinetic forces that had split them in the first place.

"Rob a bank with multiples of yourself," he sneered. "If you had any brains, you'd rob several banks at once, not converge on one."

"Shaddap!" Multiplicity yelled.

"No. You," Dark Mercury retorted, throwing himself into a flying kick and pushing all his inertia into that kick, resulting in a rib-breaking blow once his foot landed.

Multiplicity yelled in pain. "What the crap, you son of a bitch? You broke my ribs!"

"I'll break something else soon enough," Dark Mercury answered coldly.

"I'm getting out of here!" Multiplicity yelled. "This ain't fun no more!"

He began running, only to be stopped by police cars. The cops exited their cars, all pointing guns at him.

Dark Mercury was about to speed away when one of the cops spotted him.

"Is that you, Mercury?" he asked.

"Yeah, so?" Dark Mercury asked.

"You're supposed to be dead," the cop replied. "Your pals are holding a funeral for you on their island right now."

"Is that a fact?" Dark Mercury asked with a darkly amused expression. He sped away.

* * *

The funeral service was wrapping up, the minister reciting a prayer for Mercury's soul.

"Amen," Dark Mercury finished with an ironic smirk on his face.

The assembled Titans turned to face the dark speedster.

"Who are you?" the Flash asked.

"Who am I?" Dark Mercury asked. "Who is but a form following the function of what and there is a certain degree of irony in asking the name of someone who wears a mask."

"Who are you?" Beast Girl repeated, glaring in anger at the dark Mercury.

"You're the one who tore up the Rogue Bar," Wally accused.

"It needed tearing up," Dark Mercury answered.

"Who are you and why did you take Mercury's name?" Samara asked.

Beast Girl sniffed. "Mercury? Is that you?"

"Yes and no," Dark Mercury replied.

"Quit being cryptic!" Beast Girl exclaimed. "You smell just like him! Look like him, too!"

"If that is you, Peter, then what were you thinking brutalizing the Rogues the way you did?" Max Mercury asked.

"Not Peter," Dark Mercury replied. "Call me Pietro, if you don't want to call me Mercury."

A purple lariat bound the dark speedster's arms to his sides while a blue blade was held to his throat.

"Whoever you are," Nightstar hissed, "we will not let this pass."

"Samara, Raziel, can either of you read him?" Bladefire asked.

"No," Raziel replied. "We're trying, but his mind . . . it's like he's erected a giant stone wall around his thoughts and we can't pierce it."

"The benefits of an accelerated mind," Dark Mercury answered.

"I think I know what's going on," Max spoke.

"And what do you think is going on?" Inferno asked.

"Our battle with Black Flash and Speed Demon spanned time and space and several temporal anomalies were triggered in the process," Max explained. "One of those anomalies may very well have brought him here."

"So you're saying he's Mercury?" Inferno asked.

"Not the one we know, but definitely a version of him," Max answered.

"You mind letting go of me now?" Dark Mercury asked.

Nightstar retracted the violet energy that formed her lariat into her body and Bladefire withdrew his energy sword.

"So what do we do with him?" Samara asked. "We don't know him. He has our friend's face and powers, but we know nothing of him."

"I wouldn't suggest you trust him," the Flash replied. "In fact, I would recommend you not trust him. He's spent the past week filling hospital beds in Keystone and Central with the local criminals and the police suspect that he's been contributing bodies to the morgue."

"Excuse me," Dark Mercury said, raising two fingers to one of his ear-caps. "Hostage situation at Central Banking. I'll be back."

He raced away, running on the water as though it was solid ground.

Kid Flash, Velocity, and Jenny Quick ran after him.

* * *

"Give us the money and nobody gets hurt!" the leader yelled.

"What do you want?" a teller asked.

"The money, you dumb bitch!" the leader shouted.

The police were parked outside, their cars arranged to form a barrier to anyone seeking to enter or exit without their permission. Snipers were on the rooftops, ready to put a bullet in the head of any robber that came out still intent on violence. The chief had a megaphone in her hands and was shouting into it.

"We are willing to negotiate, but first you must release the hostages unharmed!"

Suddenly, a blur of discolored silver and dark blue trailing lightning sped into the bank. Barely a second later had the bank erupted into gunfire. Windows shattered and the police could see a blur of motion moving around the gunmen.

"What the hell is going on in there?" the chief asked indignantly.

More blurs – scarlet and silver, black and blue, and crimson and silver – entered the bank amidst the gunfire. Within mere seconds, the hostages were no longer hostages, as they were all safely outside the bank and in the presence of the police.

The gunfire stopped and dead silence followed.

"Get in there," the chief ordered the SWAT team. "Find out what's going on in there."

The SWAT team entered the bank, rifles ready. They found the four teen speedsters standing over the unconscious bodies of the bank robbers.

"Shouldn't have wasted all those bullets," Dark Mercury commented. "They might have actually stood a chance."

"Put your hands up!" the SWAT leader yelled. "You're all under arrest!"

"For what?" Dark Mercury asked. "These men are brutes. You don't negotiate with brutes."

"For interfering with a police operation, smart guy," the SWAT leader replied.

"Actually, you couldn't hope to arrest any of us here," Dark Mercury said.

"Don't lump us in with you, you maniac," Velocity muttered.

"You three stay and hash it out with the police if you want," Dark Mercury muttered back. "I have better things to do."

He ran, moving faster than any police car could hope to follow even if the driver pushed the car to its fastest.

Jenny Quick sighed. "Maniac."

"What was that, young lady?" the SWAT leader asked.

"Nothing, officer," Jenny replied.

* * *

Later on, the three teen speedsters were in the chief's office at the Jump City police station being reprimanded by her.

"This was a very sensitive situation," she said. "At any moment, those robbers could have started killing the hostages. You're lucky you're so fast."

"We were following someone else," Jenny spoke. "Unlike us, this someone else has no compunction about breaking bones and if our suspicions are accurate, he's perfectly willing to kill people to see his ideas of justice carried out. We hoped that our presence would serve as a dampener on his bloodlust."

"It seems like your hope was in vain," the chief said. "Those robbers won't be in any condition to talk for a while. One of them might even be brain-dead if the head trauma turns out to be that bad." She paused. "And where the hell is this person you were following? I'd like to have a word with him."

"We'll pass it on to him, but I doubt he'll actually come in," Jenny answered.

"That's fine," the chief conceded. "Just let him know if he's not seen headed here the next time he rears his head, I'll send Nova Blue after his sorry ass."

"Sure," Jenny answered.

The three speedsters walked out of the police station, enduring scattered dirty looks from various officers. They were under no illusions as to what the police thought of them. While metahuman heroes had been trusted and respected for the most part in their parents' day, the growth of the metahuman population in the last three decades had engendered in regular humans a sort of xenophobic distrust of their super-powered brethren. As a result, the new generation of heroes had a slightly more antagonistic relationship with the police than their parents and predecessors had. Additionally, many police forces had developed a kind of "super-SWAT" specially designed to counter metahuman criminals – as well as heroes that went rogue, a regrettably infamous recurring event.

Once outside, the trio sped back to Titans Island.

* * *

"What's going on?" Kid Flash asked Wally.

"The Titans are voting on whether or not 'Dark Mercury' can stay with them," Wally replied.

* * *

End Notes: Well, that's it for now. I know I promised the Titans would be more prominent, but if it seems that the speedsters are still dominating the arc, I'm sorry for that. It's just that I had to deal with the fallout from Mercury's "death" and the arrival of the mysterious "Dark Mercury." At least they actually appeared in this chapter and had lines.

If you're wondering who the Rogues are in this chapter, all of them are for the most part "new" Rogues based on the Rogues appearing in the Flash comics. Mirror Mistress, as I'm sure the Flash experts will notice, is a gender-bent Mirror Master pastiche. The others are also "new," although the Trickster in this chapter is based on the recent incarnation – Axel Walker – and Captain Boomerang here is Owen Mercer "slid" into the 2030s.

Nova Blue is the "super-SWAT" I was talking about in the narration, at least for Jump City's police department.

If you're anxious to find out the Titans' decision regarding Dark Mercury, you'll see it in the next chapter. You'll also see if they come to regret that decision.


	21. Quicksilver: Running Blind

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 5: "Running Blind"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters of Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, the former belonging to DC Comics and the latter belonging jointly to DC and Marvel Comics. Everyone else, aside from anyone you might recognize from DC (and with me, you'd need to be a comic book geek to do that), belongs to me.

Author's note: Oh, what a tangled web we weave. One Mercury is supposedly dead and has apparently been replaced by a dimensionally displaced counterpart. Notably, this other Mercury is a lot darker and more brutal than the Mercury we've come to know.

If you're wondering why he said to call him "Pietro" instead of "Peter," the Dark Flash storyline explained that a staple of Hypertime is that two versions of the same person may have slightly differing names. So our Mercury is Peter and the other Mercury is Pietro. That might help you differentiate between them, since a lot of people seem to think that the other Mercury is still the Mercury from our world, only altered by running through time. To see how this pans out, continue reading.

* * *

"I don't trust him," Samara said.

"I know you don't, but we're short-handed," Nightstar answered. "The seven of us working together are unbeatable, but with just us six things become harder."

"Doesn't mean we automatically bring a dangerous maniac into the team," Inferno retorted. "Even if he could shatter the sound barrier a hundred times over."

Bladefire was at the Tower mainframe. "Look at this."

The other Titans gathered around him. "What is it, Blade?" Nightstar asked.

"Reports from Keystone and Central Cities," Bladefire replied, scrolling down. "All of them boil down to the same thing: Someone with super-speed has been waging a one-man war on the criminal underworld. Survivors report being struck down by gale force winds or punches and kicks coming so fast and hard that their bones practically shattered."

"Survivors?" Beast Girl asked. "You mean some of the guys he attacked ended up dead, don't you?"

"Yeah," Bladefire admitted heavily.

"Still want him playing for our side?" Cipher asked.

"Whoever this Mercury is, he could use some friends," Nightstar replied. "He was alone for an entire week in this dimension. He could have been alone for longer where he comes from. He came here because no matter what reality he hails from, Titans Tower is his home. If we show him that, he may calm down. So . . . show of hands. Who wants 'Dark Mercury' on our team?"

"I don't think anyone particularly _wants_ him on the team," Samara remarked.

"Bad choice of words," Nightstar conceded. "So . . . who can stand him on our team?"

Beast Girl raised her hand first. Cipher raised his next. Samara raised her hand after him. Bladefire and Inferno raised their hands as well.

"I guess it's unanimous," Nightstar said.

"Oh, good," Dark Mercury remarked sarcastically, having appeared outside the door.

"We're taking a big risk letting you stay with us," Nightstar said. "We need a show of trust from you, Pietro. Your mask. Remove it."

Dark Mercury stared at her impassively. "And why should I do that?"

"Listen, you," Samara snarled. "Like Mar'i said, we're taking a risk allowing you to become a Titan. But we need something back from you so we know it's worthwhile. Now off with the mask."

"You might want to ask more nicely," Dark Mercury sneered.

A black aura engulfed Samara's hands and she raised them, fully ready to teach the dark speedster a lesson in respect.

"Please," Beast Girl pleaded, taking Dark Mercury's hand in hers. "Take it off."

Dark Mercury looked at her through eyes covered by semitransparent silver-white lenses. "As you wish."

He reached up and removed his mask, revealing . . .

. . . the face of Peter Allen, only two or three years older than the Peter Allen who had vanished into the timestream.

Beast Girl found herself observing idly that Mercury – no matter what universe he came from – seemed to get even more handsome as he aged. It was only the cold anger in his eyes that took away from that, although his expression seemed to soften when she touched him.

"Happy now?" he asked the other Titans mockingly.

"Somewhat," Bladefire answered.

"And if you'll excuse me, I have business to take care of," Dark Mercury said. "Namely, the people who sold Schuyler diamond meth. _Bad_ diamond meth. Have they been found and punished yet?"

"We've been working on that," Nightstar replied. "Unfortunately, between schoolwork, homework, and other investigations on the table, we haven't been able to find anything. Of course, it doesn't help that Alderman won't let us investigate on school grounds."

"You've been too kind," Dark Mercury stated. "I'll get the facts out of them."

"Don't kill any of them," Bladefire commanded. "That's an order."

"Fine," Dark Mercury conceded, speeding out of the Tower.

Nightstar flew after Dark Mercury, accelerating to match his speed.

* * *

Dark Mercury stopped at an abandoned warehouse, hearing the sounds of electronic dance music outside. He walked in, quick-changing into a blue silk shirt and black leather pants. He observed the rave-goers, looking for anyone who might be passing out diamond meth. If he'd learned anything about criminals in his years of fighting them, it was that they thought themselves immensely clever and that made them cocky, which in turn made them stupid, which in turn made them perfect prey for him.

True to form, he did find someone passing out diamond meth. The person in question was wearing a red blazer over a red shirt and red pants. He had black hair streaked with blond and green eyes.

Dark Mercury rushed the red-clad person, probably no older than him, and pinned him to the wall much to the consternation of his clients.

"What the hell?" he asked.

"Were you the one who gave Schuyler Larson this crap?" Dark Mercury asked.

"I don't know a Schuyler!" the seller replied frantically.

"Liar!" Dark Mercury yelled. "He's about this tall with perennially disheveled hair –"

"Kinda like yours?" the seller asked.

"Yes, but don't change the subject," Dark Mercury snarled. "The point is that you gave him bad meth and landed him in the hospital. Now I have half a mind to kill you right here and now." He pressed two fingers to the seller's temple. "I could do it, you know. Just vibrate the molecules of my fingers until they pass through your skull. Normally, that would be harmless, but unless I control it, it triggers a continued kinetic reaction that ends in your head exploding. Want that to happen?"

"You're supposed to be a superhero!" the seller yelled. "Isn't there some rulebook that says you guys can't kill?"

"I just rewrote the rules," Dark Mercury answered coldly. "Now you have one chance to avoid having to be identified by your prints. Tell me who makes the crap you're selling."

"I can't tell you!" the seller replied. "They'll kill me!"

"Kill you?" Dark Mercury asked. "_I'll_ kill you, you little bitch! I'll just enjoy it better."

"Hell!" the seller exclaimed. "I'll talk! It's these two rich kids: Edwin Masters and Jared Novak!"

"I know those two," Dark Mercury hissed. "From school."

"So you're gonna let me go now, right?" the seller asked.

Dark Mercury shook his head slowly.

"Oh, hell, man!" the seller exclaimed. "You gotta let me go! I gave you what you wanted, dammit!"

"Not everything," Dark Mercury amended. "You didn't give me where they're shacked up now."

"They're in another abandoned warehouse," the seller spat out rapidly. "Just five blocks away from the one they were using before! Now, goddammit, let me go, you maniac!"

Mercury vibrated his fist and struck . . .

. . . the wall next to the seller's head, blasting a hole in it due to not properly controlling his vibration.

"Ahhhhh!" the seller screamed.

The blast got the attention of the rave-goers, who began running around in a panic. Dark Mercury, still holding onto the seller, darted out of the warehouse and was about to make a run for the meth lab where Edwin and Jared were working when he was halted by Nightstar.

"Where do you think you're going with him?" she asked.

"I have two dirtbags to punish and I want this piece of dirt to see it," Dark Mercury replied, his clothes changing into the tarnished silver and blue-black of his costume. "Now get out of my way."

"Are you going to kill them?" Nightstar asked.

"If I told you yes, would you let me past?" Dark Mercury asked rhetorically.

"If your Nightstar is anything like me, you know what my answer will be," Nightstar answered.

"Understandable," Dark Mercury remarked. "But you're not stopping me."

* * *

He went zero to 200 in a second, vibrating his molecules so that he passed through Nightstar, who shuddered from the sensation. He ran toward the meth lab, blasting his way through via uncontrolled vibration through the door. The dark speedster had enough time to observe that Edwin and Jared were rather clean-cut and well-dressed, not the kind of boys anyone would suspect of running a meth lab. He also noticed that they were wearing breathing masks over the lower halves of their faces.

"What, didn't think anyone would find you?" he asked cruelly.

The seller jabbered out, "He made me tell! He said he'd kill me and he freaking meant it!"

The two boys attempted to run, but Dark Mercury blocked their path. They ran in another direction, but Dark Mercury blocked them again.

"Stay away from us, you freak!" Jared yelled in panic.

Dark Mercury smirked mirthlessly. "I can break the sound barrier at least a hundred times over. You idiots think you can run from me?"

Edwin made a desperate run for it, one Dark Mercury halted by punching him square in his face, breaking his jaw and knocking his mask off.

"Oh, man, why are you doing this to us?" Jared asked frantically.

"Because your drugs put a friend of mine in the hospital," Dark Mercury answered. "What's the deal? Daddy's money not enough for you?"

"Supply and demand, man!" Jared shouted. "Diamond meth's big at raves!"

Dark Mercury shook his head. "Not an acceptable answer."

"Hell, man, I gotta get out of here!" the seller exclaimed frantically. "The chemicals they're cooking; that crap's poisonous if you breathe it in! That's why they had masks!"

"So?" Dark Mercury asked. "They should breathe the fruits of their labors." He dropped the seller and walked up to the pot of chemical solution on the table. He picked it up and held it threateningly at the three. "So . . . who wants to take a face-plant in this?"

"Are you crazy?" Jared asked. "That'll melt your face off!"

"Sounds good to me," Dark Mercury replied with a cruel smirk.

Suddenly, they all heard sirens approaching them. The dark speedster let out a low snarl. Nightstar must have reported him. Oh, well. He would wait here. Unlike the seller, Edwin, and Jared, he had nothing to fear from the police.

The police vehicles stopped in front of the meth lab and a Hazmat team entered the lab in containment suits while police cordoned off the area.

"Do you have any idea what reckless endangerment means?" the chief asked after Dark Mercury had been detoxified.

"Do I look like someone who cares if criminals get killed by their own poison?" Dark Mercury asked. "Now these three bastards . . . I ask only one thing of you when it comes to them and that they all get the harshest, longest sentences possible. If that doesn't happen, I won't be happy and I'm not a nice person to know when I'm not happy."

"Is that a threat?" the chief asked.

"Yes," Dark Mercury replied.

"I'd like to talk to you about that stunt you pulled back at Central Banking," the chief said.

"I took down those thugs," Dark Mercury said. "What else do you want?"

"That wasn't for you to get involved in!" the chief shouted. "You could have gotten those hostages killed!"

"But I didn't," Dark Mercury countered icily. "And besides, you don't reason with thugs like that. They don't listen very well to anything that doesn't involve violence."

"The only reason I don't throw you in a power-dampening cell right now is that the Titans have a good history with this department," the chief said. "I'm trying to respect that, but I don't exactly like the idea of rampaging vigilantes running loose in my city. Don't think I don't know what you've gotten up to Keystone and Central. If you think I'm going to let you repeat that crap here, you've got another thing coming to you."

"I hope that makes you feel better," Dark Mercury answered sarcastically. "Good night." He was gone in the blink of an eye.

* * *

At Titans Tower, Nightstar and Dark Mercury were having . . . a debate. At least, that was putting it charitably.

"That is _not_ the way we handle things!" Nightstar yelled. "We're supposed to work _with_ the system, not _against_ it!"

"Well, this system is broken!" Dark Mercury answered. "You play too nicely with these people. That's why you got stalled! These scumbags have no regard for human decency! That's why they're scumbags! And that's why we can't treat them with kid gloves!"

"You threatened to kill that guy!" Nightstar exclaimed.

"Like you don't hang those kinds of assholes by their feet from a rooftop back in Gotham or Bludhaven!" Dark Mercury challenged.

"I _play_ at it!" Nightstar shouted. "I don't seriously intend to kill them; I just let them _think_ that to get them to talk! _You,_ on the other hand, were perfectly serious when you talked about vibrating your fingers through his head!"

"And maybe we need to be serious about that!" Dark Mercury asserted. "These people have no compunction about poisoning, beating, raping, and devouring their fellow human beings! As soon as they figure out we won't ever kill them, we lose their fear! If some of these murderers and dealers and rapists were to drop dead, they'd know we were serious!"

"That isn't the way to handle things," Nightstar insisted, calming herself somewhat. "We have to respect life, no matter how reprehensible we find how some people choose to spend those lives."

"That may work for you, but I've seen too much," Dark Mercury answered coldly. "This isn't child's play. This is _war._"

He stalked away to his room, or rather, the room that belonged to the version of him that once existed in this dimension.

"I'm starting to have second thoughts," Bladefire admitted.

"I think we're all having second thoughts," Inferno agreed.

"I feel . . . so much anger coming from him," Samara spoke. "And behind it, a deep sorrow. Whoever this Mercury is, he's suffered greatly in his world."

"That rage makes him dangerous," Cipher said, "both to the criminal underworld and maybe to us."

"What do you mean?" Beast Girl asked timidly.

"If we can't hold him back, if we can't teach him to value the sanctity of life," Cipher replied, "then we will catch the heat for his actions. We already have a tense relationship with the local police and his rampages will only make it worse."

"I don't even want to know what he would have done if I hadn't called the police to that meth lab," Nightstar said.

"Reports say that he was rather unconcerned with the idea that those kids might have gotten poisoned by the fumes from their own drugs," Inferno added. "Hell, Jared says he threatened to shove his face in that mixture of chemicals."

"He's not Mercury," Beast Girl said. "Not my Mercury. My Mercury wouldn't hurt people like that."

"Someone probably ought to go and talk to him," Cipher suggested, "but who would risk it?"

"I say Beast Girl," Samara suggested. "She got him to take off his mask for us."

Beast Girl looked at Samara quizzically. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Samara confirmed. "Dark Mercury has feelings for you, just like the Mercury we know."

"He scares me," Beast Girl said. "He's so cold and angry and bloodthirsty. I don't want to be around him any more than I have to."

"Well, you're probably the only one who can get through to him," Cipher said. "Would you please at least try?"

"Sure," Beast Girl conceded and walked to the room where Dark Mercury presently resided. As she got closer, she heard heavy, brutally pounding rock rhythms coming from the direction of the room. She knocked on the door. "Dark Mercury! Dark Mercury! Can I come in?"

The door slid open and Beast Girl was subjected to the full force of Dark Mercury's idea of music.

"Turn it down!" she yelled, covering her ears.

A second later the music was playing at a much lower volume.

"What did you want to see me about?" the dark speedster asked, his stare piercing into her like gold lasers.

"The other Titans are worried about you," the shape-shifting geomancer replied.

"No, that I'm some kind of murdering fanatic," Dark Mercury sneered bitterly. "Let me tell you something, my dear. These scumbags don't deserve our compassion. They're nothing but parasitic filth that suck the life out of innocent people. Criminals make life bad for everyone else, and our so-called justice system facilitates this with its revolving door policy. You remember Gotham City? Those murderous sociopaths Batman's always fighting keep busting out of Arkham, even when rationality demands that they all get the needle."

Beast Girl took a step back from him, horrified by his words. Without another word, she turned and ran to her own room, where she buried her face in her pillow and wept.

Dark Mercury closed his door and turned his radio back up to maximum volume.

When Samara entered Beast Girl's room, she saw the younger girl facedown on her bed weeping. She sat on the bed and rubbed Beast Girl's shoulder comfortingly.

Beast Girl looked up at the older girl with bloodshot eyes. "What's wrong with him? Why can't he be the Mercury I know?"

"Because he isn't," Samara replied sadly.

"What made him this way?" Beast Girl asked. "Why is he so angry?"

Before Samara could try to formulate an answer, the alarm rang.

All the Titans assembled in the main room, with the exception of Dark Mercury.

"It's Gemini," Bladefire said. "Looks like she set off an alarm in the museum. Deliberately."

"Why would she do something like that?" Inferno asked.

"Because she's a lunatic," Beast Girl replied with an offhandedness she didn't feel.

"Where's Dark Mercury?" Nightstar asked.

"Aw, hell," Bladefire uttered. "He's gone to fight her himself."

As the Titans exited the Tower, Cipher asked, "Who are we going to have to aid, her or him?"

"A good question," Nightstar replied. "One I hope we don't have to answer."

* * *

In the museum, Gemini stood, as though waiting for her inevitable fate.

"Gemini," a voice spoke, full of barely repressed fury and bloodlust.

Gemini turned, but there was no one there.

"Gemini," the voice spoke again.

"Don't think you can frighten me so easily," Gemini challenged.

"Are you so sure of that?" the voice asked.

Gemini shot her fist in the direction of the voice like a slingshot, hitting the wall instead of flesh. She snarled. "Quit playing around."

"Oh, but this game is rather fun," the voice spoke.

"You want to play games, you little diaper stain?" Gemini asked. She shot both arms out and they stretched at insane speeds, splitting into multiple tentacles and moving in different directions.

She got lucky, as the owner of the voice – one Dark Mercury – was pinned to the wall by his hand.

"Got you," Gemini hissed in triumph.

"Do you?" Dark Mercury asked with a deadly slowness. He vibrated his hand into intangibility and passed it through the tentacle that had impaled it. He inspected his hand curiously, finding a small, bloody hole in the center of his palm. His speed aura crackled around his hand as he accelerated its healing. The wound closed within seconds.

Gemini fired her fingers – which she had shaped into claws – at Dark Mercury like slingshots, only for him to dodge them and charge her. She made her body like a safety net and turned the force of his charge on him, throwing him back. Dark Mercury landed in a crouch and snapped his fingers, setting off a sonic boom that should have blown Gemini apart.

Instead, she seemed to absorb the force of the blast, perhaps due to her body's extreme malleability, and turn it back on him, resulting in him being knocked into a glass-covered display. Dark Mercury caught the glass shards with invisible hands as they fell and redirected their motion so that they were now flying at Gemini, who literally twisted out of the way.

The dark speedster launched himself into a flying kick, directing all the inertia from his motion at Gemini. Unfortunately, her malleability cushioned the blow and she knocked him back. She shot her hand at him as it enlarged into a huge claw, grabbing him and wrapping the extra length of her arm around him to secure him.

"Not a good idea," Dark Mercury spoke grimly and vibrated his body until the friction burns forced Gemini to release him. She shot her hand at him again, but he dodged and her fist slammed into another display. The glass fell, but Dark Mercury redirected the shards' motion so that they flew at her. Gemini twisted out of the way and she shot her leg out in a fast stretching kick that slammed the platinum-haired dark speedster into another wall.

Dark Mercury's response was to grab her ankle and lend enough speed to her molecules to literally blow her foot off.

Gemini stood on one leg as her other foot re-formed.

"Nice try."

"You haven't seen all I've got yet," Dark Mercury retorted, slamming his fist into the floor and setting off a linear wave of destruction through it. The twisted shifter fell to the floor. "Now what was the point of this?"

Gemini smirked as she shot her head at Dark Mercury like a slingshot and head-butted him. "I was hired to kill you."

"Who?" Dark Mercury managed to ask, his speed-enhanced powers of recuperation reorienting him quickly.

"Can't say, but they offered a ton of cash for your death," Gemini answered.

"Well, I'm not going to let you get rich off my blood," Dark Mercury snarled, charging her again and directing his inertia right at her. Again, her malleability cushioned the blow, but he was prepared for that this time. He vibrated through her . . . without controlling the vibration.

The end result was that Gemini was splattered all over the museum hall.

"Got you," the dark speedster spoke.

At that moment, the other Titans arrived.

"What happened, Dark Mercury?" Inferno asked.

"I took care of Gemini," Dark Mercury replied. "She won't be troubling us for a while. The interesting thing is that someone hired her to kill me."

"That's why she set off the alarm," Cipher concluded. "She wanted to draw you out."

"The problem is that she wouldn't say who hired her, only that they offered her a lot for my head on a platter," Dark Mercury added.

"Why don't we make a list of all the crime lords who would have the resources to put a hit out on you?" Beast Girl asked sarcastically.

Dark Mercury smirked. "Good to see that you still have your spirit."

"You troublesome brat," Gemini snarled from behind Dark Mercury before impaling him with her arms-turned-sharp tentacles. There wasn't much for him to do except collapse.

"Dark Mercury!" Beast Girl cried out, horrified. With a shrill, catlike wail of grief and fury, she morphed into a feline-human hybrid shape and lunged at Gemini, claws out.

Gemini dodged, smirking cruelly. "What's the matter, Beastie? Angry I killed your boyfriend?"

Beast Girl roared and attacked the malleable young woman again. Gemini grabbed the shape-shifting geomancer with her stretching limbs, pulling her into her body as it expanded to consume her. With a burst of geomantic force, Beast Girl broke free and attacked the malleable maniac viciously, slashing her again and again with golden-glowing claws.

Gemini extended her fists like slingshots and Beast Girl dodged with feline agility. Unfortunately, one of Gemini's attacks actually made it through and knocked Beast Girl into a wall. Gemini quickly seized her and began smothering her with her enlarged claw-hand.

Nightstar lashed with her energy whip and sliced Gemini's arm off, freeing Beast Girl. Gemini regenerated her arm and shot it at Nightstar, who flew out of the way and fired an optic blast at the twisted shifter. The blast blew a considerably sized hole in her abdomen, but that hole quickly closed.

Suddenly, jets of heat assaulted her, causing her to cry out and attempt to shield herself.

"What's the matter?" Inferno taunted. "Can't take the heat?"

"You . . ." Gemini hissed, attempting to strike down the fire user with one of her extending arms. Her arm didn't even get three-quarters of the way to him before it started melting from the heat emanating from him.

Seeing that she couldn't do anything while Inferno was assaulting her with heat waves, Gemini reluctantly began to flee.

"Samara, heal Dark Mercury," Bladefire ordered. "The rest of us will go after Gemini."

"Sure," Samara acquiesced in a tone that suggested she wasn't entirely pleased with Bladefire's orders yet not willing to press the issue.

Gemini fled the museum, only to run into a barricade of police vans and Nova Blue operatives.

"Freeze!" one of the operatives shouted, pointing a cryonic rifle at her.

"Get out of my way," she snarled, stretching her fist at the operative. The operative turned out to be rather quick-witted and with good reflexes, as she quickly fired her rifle, freezing Gemini solid.

The sight of the frozen Gemini and the Nova Blue operatives was what the Titans found when they exited the museum.

"Good work," Nightstar complimented.

"Thanks," the Nova Blue squad leader answered. "You guys must have softened her up pretty good, though; she was kinda panicky when she ran out. We'll take it from here."

"All right," Bladefire said.

Once Gemini had been taken away, the five Titans returned to the museum to see Samara and a restored Dark Mercury.

"Where is she?" Dark Mercury asked.

"Nova Blue put her on ice," Cipher replied.

"Should have broken that ice and scattered the pieces all over the world," Dark Mercury sneered. His expression softened when he saw Beast Girl. "She didn't hurt you, did she?"

"No," Beast Girl replied. "But when I thought she'd killed you . . ."

"Takes more than that to kill me," Dark Mercury answered. Under his breath, he darkly added, "And I won't let us be parted by death, Terri. Not ever again."

* * *

End Notes: That's it out of me for this chapter. Now, you've expected that my arcs will be five chapters long. That was true with the first two arcs, but this is gonna be at least six chapters long. If I have enough material, I may very well do seven chapters. You are going to see Dark Mercury live up to his name in the upcoming chapter.

In my opening notes, I didn't tell you the full story behind Dark Mercury being called Pietro instead of Peter. True, in Hypertime, two versions of the same person can have slightly differing names. However, Dark Mercury's name is homage to the Mercury of Amalgam Comics, who is a template for both versions of Mercury in the canon of Future Storm.

If you're wondering who Cipher is and where Raziel went, you should have read Side Story 4 (chapter 14). Cipher is Raziel's new codename.

Note the last words spoken in this chapter. They will be very important later on in this arc. Mainly, you will see just how far Dark Mercury will go to stay with Beast Girl.

Now I hope you don't mind letting me know what you think of this chapter.


	22. Quicksilver: Trance Motion

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 3: "Quicksilver"

Chapter 6: "Trance Motion"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters of Nightstar and (Dark) Mercury do not belong to me; the former is the property of DC Comics and the latter belongs jointly to DC and Marvel via Amalgam Comics. Anything or anyone you don't recognize from either the show or the comics belongs to me.

Author's note: This is a milestone for this series, the first arc to go past five chapters. I promise I'll either tie everything up in this chapter or the next. Even then, it won't be entirely over because whichever Mercury remains, he'll have some new powers to learn to control and I'll write that in a one-shot epilogue.

Those of you who guessed at Dark Mercury's motivations may find yourselves being proven right.

* * *

Beast Girl wasn't sleeping very well. Of course, who would sleep well with a nightmare plaguing their mind?

"Mercury," she moaned in her sleep. "Don't go . . . don't leave me . . ." She gripped her pillow tightly. "Please don't go . . . please stay . . . stay with me . . ."

She felt a hand gently touching her shoulder. "Terri," a voice whispered. "Terri, wake up . . ." The hand shook her gently yet insistently. "Please. For me?"

Beast Girl opened her eyes partly, not fully awake but not really asleep.

"Mercury?" she asked.

"Yeah," the owner of the voice, Dark Mercury, lied . . . or half-lied, anyway.

"I'm still dreaming, aren't I?" Beast Girl murmured.

"Yeah," Dark Mercury lied again, this time a full untruth. He stroked her hair gently. "Go to sleep. I'll still be there in your dreams. I love you, Terri. Always."

"I love you, too," Beast Girl answered.

Dark Mercury kissed her gently on the forehead and vibrated his molecules so fast he became both invisible and intangible, seeming to disappear before Beast Girl's eyes. He passed through her door and sped out of Titans Tower. The others could sleep if they needed it so badly.

He had work to do.

* * *

When the sun rose, so did Nightstar and Bladefire. They opened their respective windows and flew outside to greet the sun, spending a full thirty minutes performing aerobatics in front of the bright orb of plasma. They practiced maneuvers that they had spent most of their lives perfecting, perfectly in sync with each other. It was almost like a personal language that only they knew.

Once it was over, the Titan leaders returned to the Tower, Nightstar getting into the shower first. A mere fifteen minutes later – it would have been shorter, but Nightstar was a sensualist at heart, much like her mother had been – the dark-haired girl was out of the shower and drying herself while her red-haired twin used the shower. He was out in barely a minute less than her.

The two went to their rooms and dressed themselves, going down to the kitchen-slash-dining area for breakfast. One by one, the other Titans joined them, Dark Mercury being the last one.

"You seem better than you were last night, Terri," Samara observed.

"Yeah," Beast Girl confirmed with a hesitant smile.

"What are we gonna do with him?" Inferno asked, jerking a thumb at Dark Mercury.

"Good question," Cipher answered. "Peter Allen is dead as far as the world knows and I don't think the alternate reality clause works."

"What the hell do you mean it doesn't work?" Beast Girl asked. "Just twenty years ago, the Crime Syndicate tried to impersonate the Justice League and when the League knocked those posers out of this universe, they explained it."

"The Justice League consists of the Earth's greatest heroes, or at least that's how the tagline goes," Cipher responded. "They get more credibility than a bunch of hormonal teenagers. I don't think anyone will believe that Dark Mercury is another version of Mercury from a parallel universe if he shows up to school with us."

"So I don't go," Dark Mercury said.

"But what're you gonna do all day?" Bladefire asked.

"I'll find something," Dark Mercury replied. "Maybe I'll take a trip to Paris."

"Do you even speak French?" Nightstar asked.

"I learn fast," Dark Mercury answered.

Nightstar was in the main room watching the morning news feed on the Titans Tower mainframe. The latest news item disturbed her greatly.

"_And here we see the remains of what can only be described as the worst kind of devastation,"_ the news anchor spoke, pointing behind him to show the destroyed remnants of a run-down old building. "_Sources say that this building was a headquarters for the manufacture and sale of the super-speed drug Velocity 11. Captain Wilder has this to say."_

The camera cut to a bald man in plainclothes. "_There was only one survivor. The others were . . . I'd rather not say, what I saw was too horrible to be repeated. He said that someone, or something, rushed in and generally raised hell, doing it faster than the eye could see. The guy says that he and his guys were shooting at whatever it was but the bullets never made it. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but it was like the bullets were being redirected so that they never hit whoever or whatever attacked them."_

"_You said whoever the attacker was, they moved faster than the eye could see,"_ the anchor said. "_Would you conjecture that this was the work of a speedster?"_

"_I definitely wouldn't rule it out,"_ Wilder replied.

"_And there you have it,"_ the anchor said. "_This is not the first such incident. Keystone City and Central City, home to speedster crime-fighters for decades, suffered a week of such vigilante rampages. Just last night, the Titans held a funeral for their teammate Mercury and on that same night, someone else similar in appearance and powers to him joined their ranks, also calling himself Mercury. However, according to police reports, this new Mercury is a less merciful crime-fighter than his predecessor or teammates, so it begs the question. Is he responsible for this savage attack? Connie Roberts, for NewsNet 6."_

Nightstar swore under her breath and logged out, striding to the table where the other Titans sat with a supremely disturbed expression on her face.

"Pietro."

"What?"

"I just saw a news feed about a Velocity 11 manufacturing house that was torn apart. Everyone except for one guy was killed and it was horrible enough that they wouldn't mention how on the feed. Here's the kicker: Whoever did it was too fast to be hit by bullets and there's even talk that those bullets were somehow redirected. Now I don't know everything you're capable of, but I have to ask . . . where were you?"

"Out."

"Don't you sleep?"

"Don't need to. The Speed Force gives me all the energy I need."

"So that's why you weren't eating anything," Beast Girl remarked.

"We'll have to go to school soon," Nightstar said. "Hurry up."

"Again, what are we going to do with Pietro?" Inferno asked. "He's older than we are, so I doubt anyone's going to buy him as a high school sophomore."

"I don't go, remember?" Dark Mercury answered. "I stay here and find something to occupy myself with."

"It looks like we have no other choice," Bladefire said. "Besides, are we going to get him a babysitter?"

"There's an idea," Samara drawled.

"I don't need a babysitter," Dark Mercury sneered. "Just because you can't handle how I do things doesn't mean I'm out of control."

"Really?" Nightstar asked. "It takes more discipline not to put people in the hospital or the morgue. You apparently don't have that kind of discipline."

"Criminals," Dark Mercury amended. "That's the problem. The criminal justice system is utterly shot to hell, what with all the psychologists making excuses for their behavior. People who prey on others have no excuse, no justification. The grave is actually too good for them, in a sense."

"Is that an admission?" Nightstar asked.

Dark Mercury merely glared. "Don't you have school to attend?"

"This isn't over," Nightstar stated. "Not by a long shot, Pietro."

The Titans, sans Dark Mercury, went to school. As for the dark speedster, he sat in front of the Tower mainframe and began monitoring the city. Even though he'd taken care of that manufacturing house, the Hell's Blitzkriegs, the gang that had gotten its hands on Velocity 11, was still on the loose and they still had enough left to be a threat.

_They don't deserve their speed,_ he thought.

For hours, there was nothing . . . then movement.

_During the day?_ Dark Mercury wondered. _Idiots. Fragging idiots._

A translucent metallic sheen covered his body and part of his face, solidifying into his costume. A split second later, he was out of the Tower and on his way to the sector of the city where the crime was being committed.

* * *

He found the Hell's Blitzkriegs robbing the diamond district. They were fast, but it was only about twice the speed of sound, not nearly enough to be a real threat to him.

He snuck up on one of the Blitzkriegs and chopped him in the back of the neck, causing him to drop his bag of diamonds and collapse. He'd heard a slight crack and figured he might have broken a vertebra or two. That was one of the drawbacks of the metabolic acceleration that Velocity 11 triggered in its users: loss of bone mass, which made bones considerably weaker than normal.

Another Blitzkrieg looked for his comrade, only to get grabbed and dealt compound fractures in his arms and legs by Dark Mercury.

The third Blitzkrieg was smarter and deduced something foul was happening to his fellows.

"Holy frag!" he shouted. "Look the frag out! Someone's gunning for us!"

"Who?" a fourth asked.

"Me," Dark Mercury snarled before bashing their heads together and thus knocking them unconscious. He figured that would crack their skulls a bit thanks to their weak bones.

Three other Blitzkriegs came, having heard their compatriot's warning, only to find Dark Mercury waiting.

"Back the hell off, fool!" one of them shouted. "We got super-speed, too!"

"Only a pathetic, drug-induced shadow of speed," Dark Mercury countered contemptuously. He was about to dispatch the three gangsters, but someone else took care of them – a black-gloved fist embedding itself in one's stomach, a silver-booted foot striking the chest of another, and a red-streaked black head smashing into the third's head. "They were mine."

"I'm sure," the other speedster spoke and Dark Mercury could see him clearly this time. He wore a costume parts black and silver, the colors divided by a diagonal lightning line. His right glove and boot were silver and his left glove and boot were black. His eyes were concealed by opaque black visor-like goggles affixed to his face.

"Jace Lawrence," Dark Mercury spoke, recognizing the other speedster's aura.

"Call me Windrunner," Jace said. "It's my working name."

"That was Max's old name," Dark Mercury said. "What are you doing with it?"

"He's letting me use it," Jace replied.

"What do you and Max have to do with each other?" Dark Mercury inquired.

"He's training me," Jace answered. "Turns out the Demon left me with a fraction of his powers. I can still run, but I'm not as fast as I used to be. When Max measured my speed, he told me I topped out at Mach 8, but I'm not always able to go that fast. Sometimes, I'm slower, way slower."

"What brings you here?" Dark Mercury asked.

"I have bad news," Windrunner responded. "Remember those guys who tried to rob Central Banking? The ones you beat the unholy crap out of? The guy who was in critical condition? He's no longer in _any_ condition."

"He's dead," Dark Mercury concluded coldly.

"Yeah," Windrunner confirmed, "which means Nova Blue has decided that you're a threat. They can't confirm the other stuff you've done, but this is one thing they can definitely tie you to, which means they're gonna try to connect you to the other stuff."

"So what?" Dark Mercury asked. "They won't catch me. I'm too fast for them."

"Hell, Pietro!" Windrunner exclaimed. "Do you not understand the magnitude of what you've done? They'll hang you in the press and the anti-meta activists out there will use you to make all metas look bad!"

"That's their problem," Dark Mercury said. "The only reason they're going to take me down is that I shame them. I am a living example of their inadequacy against the threats that plague innocent people daily."

"You still don't get it," Windrunner sighed. "Nova Blue will come for you. They will pull out as many stops as they need to in order to bring you down. These are highly trained, highly disciplined operatives armed with enough firepower for a small nation's army. You think you're ready to go up against that?"

"I've gone up against worse," Dark Mercury answered.

Windrunner shook his head sadly. "Turn yourself in. They might be inclined to go easy on you."

"No, they won't," Dark Mercury contradicted. "I do what they can't. They won't let that stand. They're after me because they don't appreciate true justice."

He disappeared in a trail of crackling blue-white.

* * *

No sooner had Dark Mercury gotten within sight of Titans Tower that he found himself before a barricade of police vans and Nova Blue operatives. Not quite to his surprise, he found the Titans standing there with them.

"Oh, you fools," he said. "You miserable, miserable fools."

"Surrender now, Mercury!" the Nova Blue squad leader shouted.

"And what if I say, 'Screw you'?" Dark Mercury asked.

"Then you leave us no choice," the Nova Blue squad leader answered.

"Damn it, Pietro, don't do this to yourself!" Beast Girl pleaded.

"Sorry, my dear, but there are things a man has to do in this world," Dark Mercury said. "This, unfortunately, is one of them."

The Nova Blue operatives trained their rifles on Dark Mercury.

"You and your guns," Dark Mercury sneered. His fist vibrated and he punched the ground, detonating it below the feet of Nova Blue and the Titans. The ground collapsed into the sewers and Nova Blue and the Titans began to fall. In a split second, he grabbed Beast Girl just as she was about to shift into a harpy to save herself. "You're coming with me."

He made a run for it, carrying Beast Girl in his wake. Since he was controlling her motion, she really had no hope of escaping from him.

"Let me go!" Beast Girl exclaimed.

"No," Dark Mercury hissed. "You're mine and I'm not letting you go again."

"Again?" Beast Girl asked. "What are you talking about?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Nightstar, Bladefire, Inferno, and Samara halted themselves in midair, Samara telekinetically catching Cipher. She also created an umbrakinetic platform for the Nova Blue operatives to fall on.

"Thanks," the Nova Blue squad leader said.

"You're welcome," Samara replied before levitating them all onto the undamaged portion of the street.

Nightstar, Bladefire, and Inferno joined them. "Crap," Inferno said, summarizing how they all felt. "I had no idea he was that out of control."

"Where's Beast Girl?" Cipher asked.

"Dark Mercury must have taken her," Nightstar replied. "With his speed, he could be anywhere in the world. _Anywhere._"

"What do you think he'll do with her?" Bladefire asked.

"He won't hurt her," Samara answered. "He loves her, as much as our Mercury did. His pain, his rage – whatever happened in his world to make him like that, it had something to do with her."

"It doesn't matter," Nightstar said. "He's a killer. A dangerous, fast-as-lightning killer. Wherever he is, Terri's not safe with him."

"We should contact the Bureau of Metahuman Affairs," Inferno suggested. "They might be able to send operatives to find them."

"Good idea, but we don't want to send them to their deaths," Cipher interjected. "If Dark Mercury's viciousness centers on something happening to Beast Girl in his world, we have no idea how far he'll go to make sure he is not parted from her. I read his soul. He's a twisted, angry creature, but also a creature in extreme pain."

"I don't care how much pain he's in," the Nova Blue squad leader said. "He's cut a bloody swath through Jump, Keystone, and Central. I don't want that whack job running loose, especially with a hostage."

Nightstar flipped open her communicator. "If Beast Girl still has her communicator, we can track her and Dark Mercury down." She looked at the readout in the screen of her communicator and swore. "He's smarter than we expected."

"We can still contact the BMA," Bladefire said. "They have tracking software designed to lock onto a particular metahuman's bioelectric signature."

"Give it a try," Nightstar replied. "But we go ourselves."

* * *

Elsewhere, Beast Girl was bound to a chair by an elastic substance that would hold her no matter what shape she took.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Because I need you," Dark Mercury replied.

"The other Titans and Nova Blue will find us," Beast Girl said. "Then they'll lock you away!"

"No, they won't," Dark Mercury snarled. "They won't lock me away because I won't be parted from you again. Not even if I have to take them all out."

"'Take them all out'?" Beast Girl asked. "Pietro, those are our friends you're talking about!"

"They're fools!" Dark Mercury exploded. "Fools who don't understand a single damned thing! This is war! I didn't get that before, not until it was too late, not until you were a casualty of that war!" Calming down somewhat, he continued, "That was when I understood . . . that there are people who are without compassion and must be fought mercilessly, pitilessly, and relentlessly. If you don't understand that, then you are a fool, too."

"If I'm such a fool, why don't you get rid of me?" Beast Girl asked bitterly.

Dark Mercury chuckled sadly. "I'd never harm you, Terri. I love you too much."

"If you love me so much, why did you kidnap me?" Beast Girl asked sardonically.

Dark Mercury just stared.

"Fine, I'll give you your answer," Beast Girl went on. "You're obsessed with someone who's dead and obsessed with me because I look like her."

"You _are_ her," Dark Mercury insisted. "Just dimensions apart."

"If she's anything like me, do you think she'd be pleased with what you've turned yourself into?" Beast Girl asked softly.

Dark Mercury's posture sagged noticeably. "No . . . she wouldn't." His lips twisted into a ruined smile. "But it's too late for me now."

Suddenly, the air between him and Beast Girl warped. A crackling current of blue energy emerged within the warp, forming into a vaguely humanoid shape. The shape became more defined, taking a concrete form. It eventually became visible as a blue energy replica of Mercury, lightning dancing around him.

* * *

"What the hell?" Dark Mercury murmured in surprise.

Beast Girl gasped in shock and awe. "Mercury?"

"Yeah, Terri, it's me," Mercury confirmed as the blue aura faded to reveal his true appearance – a short-sleeved blue-and-white costume with elbow pads and fingerless gloves, platinum hair, and peach skin.

Dark Mercury snarled furiously, "You won't take her from me!"

The darker Mercury suddenly accelerated into a vicious inertia-fueled punch that sent his counterpart soaring out the window and toward the ground below. He jumped out the window, directing all his inertia into his descent so that he could strike Mercury with tremendous force, hastening the other speedster's descent.

Mercury rose to his feet and wiped the blood from his lip. "You hit pretty hard."

"You haven't seen how hard I can hit yet," Dark Mercury retorted threateningly, staring down his other self.

"And you haven't seen all my moves yet, either," Mercury countered.

The twin speedsters charged at each other, colliding with superhumanly fast and brutal punches and kicks. Mercury threw a punch at Dark Mercury's face, only for his doppelganger to tilt his head to the side, evading the punch even as he dropped to deliver a low sweeping kick. Mercury jumped over his doppelganger's leg and spun into a kick that would have done some damage . . . had it connected. Instead, he had to bear the humiliation of having his leg caught and being spun into a throw that sent him flying a considerable distance away.

Dark Mercury followed his twin's uncontrolled flight, his speed creating a sonic boom in his path. Normally, a speedster could control this, but Dark Mercury didn't care about controlling it. He just wanted to erase his alternate self from existence.

He soon caught up to his counterpart, assaulting him with inertia-charged blows that would have killed someone without the protection of a speed aura. As it was, Mercury would be nursing bruises later.

Mercury finally landed on the ground, tumbling backward and entering a crouch. Dark Mercury launched himself into a running jump, swinging his leg out in a brutal kick. Mercury caught his leg and flipped into his own kick, landing it on his doppelganger's shoulder.

Dark Mercury pulled back, his counterpart's kick having dislocated his shoulder. He forced his shoulder back into place and speed-healed it before redoubling his attack on Mercury, who ran away. He ran in the opposite direction.

The twin speedsters met halfway, having built up enough momentum to strike each other with the kind of force that would kill more vulnerable beings. Dark Mercury milked it for all it was worth, channeling his inertia into crushing blows. Mercury blocked the best he could, retaliating with powerful blows in their own right.

"Why are you doing this?" Mercury asked.

"I lost Terri once," Dark Mercury answered with cold determination in his voice. "I won't lose her again."

The twin speedsters raced around the world, colliding again and again. Both of them were moving at supersonic speeds, which left sonic booms in their wake. Every window they passed shattered and Dark Mercury took control of the falling shards' motion, redirecting them so that they would fly at his counterpart, who dodged every one to the best of his ability.

_How the hell do I beat this guy?_ Mercury asked, gritting his teeth. _He's got better tricks than I do, but I can still stop him._

As they fought, Mercury felt his speed draining away.

_Aw, crap,_ he thought. _That's Speed Demon's tactic: sucking the speed out of his opponents in the middle of a fight. How did he learn it?_

Dark Mercury channeled the stolen speed into a hyperkinetic orb, punching it at his counterpart. Upon being struck by his fist, the orb split into twenty-five smaller speed bullets, flying at Mercury.

Mercury dodged the bullets, but they wouldn't stop coming after him.

"I may have learned from Speed Demon, but at least I know how to improve on his tricks," the darker Mercury remarked.

"Now I _know_ you're not me!" Mercury exclaimed. "I'd never join forces with that monster!"

"You'd be surprised what you'd do if you wanted to avenge someone you love," Dark Mercury answered.

Mercury threw up a molecular field around himself, deflecting the speed bullets.

"I see you've learned a few new tricks of your own," Dark Mercury commented, "but that won't save you."

Mercury was about to answer, only to get a horrible, chilling feeling down his spine.

"Terri," he murmured. "She's in danger."

Dark Mercury's eyes widened behind the lenses of his mask and he began running, his alternate self tailing him.

* * *

When the twin speedsters made it back to where Dark Mercury had imprisoned Beast Girl, they found her with the Zookeeper.

"Zookeeper," Dark Mercury snarled. "Nice seeing you again. I get to kill you a second time."

"Ah, two Mercuries," the Zookeeper remarked. "I know of you quite well, 'Dark Mercury.' The little murderer who imagines that he is actually doing good, ridding the world of 'criminal filth.' You've broken sweet Theresa's heart, haven't you?"

"Get away from her, Register!" Mercury shouted.

"Or you'll do what?" the Zookeeper asked. In a more conversational tone, "I've improved my shape-shifting powers. Would you like to see?"

Before the twin speedsters could react, the Zookeeper had morphed into a swarm of purple bats, all of them assaulting both Mercuries. Dark Mercury set off a sonic boom that knocked the bats off him and his counterpart. The bats simply re-formed into deadly hawks, talons outstretched as they dove at both speedsters. Dark Mercury grabbed one of the purple hawks and detonated it, accelerating its molecular activity to the point it exploded.

The other remaining hawks flew away and combined back into the Zookeeper.

"You are quite the vicious little speed freak, aren't you?" he remarked.

Dark Mercury's answer was to charge at him with a vibrating fist cocked. However, Zookeeper morphed into a nest of vipers, which attacked the dark speedster as one, wrapping around his body. Dark Mercury vibrated into insubstantiality to escape being bitten by them, regrouping with Mercury, who had freed Beast Girl by vibrating her out of her restraints.

The vipers re-formed into a pack of snarling wolves, attacking the trio. Beast Girl morphed into a hybrid wolf-girl shape to battle them, as the twin speedsters merely attempted to avoid them. Unfortunately, the wolves soon managed to corner them.

"Any suggestions?" Dark Mercury asked. "Because sonic-booming this bastard hasn't worked."

"I've got one," Mercury replied. "We synchronize our vibrations."

"Synchronize our vibrations?" Dark Mercury echoed.

"Yeah," Mercury confirmed. "If we do that, we can merge into one badass speedster with all the powers and skills of both of us and take this Zookeeper freak out."

"Are you sure?" Dark Mercury asked.

"I wouldn't try this with anyone else, but since you and I are the same person, just dimensions apart, it could work," Mercury answered. "Now let's get to work. Terri, hold them off."

"All right," Beast Girl said, battling the wolf pack.

Both Mercuries began to vibrate at the same time, fine-tuning their vibration patterns to match each other. Once a perfect match was achieved, they vibrated into each other and something . . . awe-inspiring . . . happened.

A single Mercury stood where two had stood before. He wore the costume of Dark Mercury, but the blue was much lighter and the tarnished silver was white as snow.

The separate personalities of the two Mercuries remained, but they could see into each other's memories and thoughts.

_Beast Girl being viciously murdered by Gemini._

_Pietro Allen betraying the Titans and joining Speed Demon._

_Pietro learning every trick Speed Demon possessed, amplifying his own speed powers until he was strong enough to kill him._

_Pietro donning the tarnished silver and blue-black of his new costume._

_Pietro brutally dismantling Tartarus, killing every member and saving Gemini for last. Hers was the most vicious of his kills that night. It didn't come without its costs, though; the wounds he suffered were so extensive that he had to accelerate his metabolism to heal them, which pushed his physical age to 19._

_Pietro waging a one-man war on the criminal underworld, crippling or murdering criminals._

_I . . . I could never be like that,_ Mercury thought. _I could never do those things! Never!_

_Don't be so sure,_ Dark Mercury answered grimly.

In the real world, the fused Mercury charged the wolf pack the Zookeeper had become and began fighting them all off.

_I'll protect you, Terri,_ both Mercuries thought. _With my life._

The wolves slashed at him, but he quickly metabolized the injuries, making them disappear in mere seconds. He set off a sonic boom, knocking them away from him. The wolves merely regrouped as one Zookeeper and that was when the fused Mercury attacked him. The Zookeeper may have been gifted with animal reflexes, but the combined speed of Peter and Pietro Allen proved to be too much for him and he collapsed into unconsciousness.

"He's done," the fused Mercury said.

It was at that moment that the other Titans showed up, along with several agents from the Bureau of Metahuman Affairs.

"What's going on?" Samara asked. "There were two identical metahuman signals clashing all over the world and now . . ."

"There's only one of them," Inferno filled in. "But which one is he?"

The fused Mercury turned to the Titans and separated into Peter and Pietro Allen.

"So . . . which one do we bring in?" one of the BMA agents asked.

"Actually, you won't have to worry about that," a female voice spoke, just after a portal opened in the middle of the room.

The Titans and BMA agents turned to see a man and a woman step out of the portal, both dressed in black uniforms. The uniforms consisted of close-fitting jackets and pants, with thick boots and red trim on the jacket zippers. The man was moderately tall and tan with close-cropped dark hair, while the woman was slightly smaller with dusky skin and dark brown hair.

"Who are you people?" Nightstar asked.

"We're from the Hypertime Agency," the man replied. "I'm Agent Troy and this is Agent Harris."

"What the hell is the Hypertime Agency?" Beast Girl asked.

"There is no such thing as one true timeline," Agent Troy replied. "There is a main timeline, though, one from which all the other timelines branch off. No two timelines are identical and even the two timelines that most closely resemble each other have some key differences."

"Ah, so this is the theory of the multiverse I've heard so much about," Cipher remarked.

"You'd be right, only we call it Hypertime," Agent Harris said. "To continue where my partner left off, sometimes timelines blend into each other and they either stay blended, with minor, subtle changes occurring, or they separate again later. Sometimes, extreme occurrences, such as someone from one timeline crossing over into another, cause the two timelines to merge in particularly dangerous ways, ultimately destroying both of them. Peter and Pietro Allen are an example of this."

"Because they're the same person," Inferno said. "Different realities, but they answer to the same – or rather, similar – names. The two of them together in one dimension is causing their respective dimensions to blend into each other."

"There is only one solution," Agent Troy said. "We have to remove Pietro from this world. It is not his world and his presence is endangering it and his own. He will have to be returned to his proper place in the timestream if we want to prevent it from collapsing on itself."

Dark Mercury sighed and looked at Beast Girl. "I guess this means good-bye."

He reached out and kissed her, his lips pressing against hers with a desperate need that broke her heart. The kiss may have lasted only five seconds in normal time, but in the subjective time that all speedsters lived in, it might as well have been twenty minutes.

He pulled away with a sad expression in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

The dark speedster held out his arms to the two Hypertime Agents, who bound his wrists with a flexible black cord.

"Don't worry," Agent Harris said. "He won't be vibrating out of these." She removed an object resembling a cell phone from her pocket and flipped it open, pressing a button. A portal opened and she, Agent Troy, and Pietro Allen stepped into it, vanishing from this dimension.

"Let's go home," Mercury said.

* * *

The Zookeeper had been sent back to prison and returned to his regimen of heavy sedation.

The Titans had returned to the Tower.

"If you weren't dead, where were you?" Samara asked Mercury.

"In the Speed Force," Mercury replied. "I felt myself going, going into that darkness that waits at the end of this world's line, but something pulled me back at the last millisecond. The next thing I knew, I was engulfed by this light and I saw the speedsters that had come before me, before my father, before Jay, even. They taught me so much . . . I was tempted to stay in there forever, but . . ." He turned to Beast Girl. "I had to come back, for you."

"For me?" Beast Girl asked in confusion and astonishment.

"For you," Mercury repeated emphatically. "Now if you guys don't mind, I've had a long week. I need to sleep."

* * *

As hard as Mercury tried to sleep, he couldn't. His doppelganger's memories floated through his head, keeping him awake. He kept seeing Beast Girl's death again and again, as well as what it had done to Pietro.

_I couldn't be like that,_ he thought. _I couldn't._

His self-reassurances were hollow, though, and he knew it. The truth was that Pietro Allen hadn't been so different from Peter Allen before Pietro's Beast Girl had been murdered by Gemini.

That begged the question: Would losing Beast Girl push him that far over the edge?

His brooding was interrupted when Beast Girl entered his room. He quickly turned on the light, but kept it dim so that his eyes wouldn't have to go through the burden of adjusting to it.

"Terri?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep," Beast Girl replied. "I haven't been able to sleep ever since you vanished." She climbed onto the bed and that was when Mercury noticed that she was dressed in the green negligee and panties he'd gotten her for Christmas. "He – the other you – he scared me. He was cold, cruel, and downright frightening. That couldn't ever be you, could it?"

"I'm not so sure of that," Mercury admitted darkly. "The whole reason he became like that was he couldn't save you from Gemini. Before that happened, he and I weren't so different. And even when we were fighting, the moment I told him you were in danger, he broke off the fight and came for you. He still loved you . . . and I still love you."

Beast Girl kissed him deeply, her lips pressed against his with the ache in her heart. Mercury returned the kiss fully, feeling an ache to match hers. Her hands found their way to his chest and began undoing the buttons of his pajama shirt.

Mercury didn't stop her.

* * *

End Notes: A bittersweet ending right there. The proper Mercury is restored to his place with the Titans and the dark Mercury is on his back to his own world. I have an idea as to what to do with him after this, but I'd like to see if anyone's interested, so if you are, FF-dot-net users can PM me on that.

This chapter was the most Dark Flash-inspired of this arc, with the battle between the twin Mercuries and the later fusion. The fused Mercury most closely resembles his Amalgam Comics inspiration, with the white-and-blue costume and all.

Velocity 11, if you must know, is a spin-off of Velocity 9, a super-drug in the earlier issues of Wally West's Flash title that could grant its users temporary super-speed but at the price of instant addiction and debilitating effects on the users' metabolisms.

So that's it. There's the end, for the time being, but the aftermath has to be seen. You'll get that in the following side story.

Until next time.


	23. Side Story 7: Still Running

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 7: "Still Running"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Mercury, and Zatara II do not belong to me, either. Nightstar and Zatara II belong to DC Comics and Mercury belongs to DC and Marvel via Amalgam. Everyone else is largely mine.

Author's note: This is the epilogue to "Quicksilver" that I promised. The "proper" Mercury is restored to his timeline, but that doesn't mean that it's all over yet. Not quite.

* * *

He had the nightmare again.

"_Terri!" the platinum-haired speedster shouted, running toward her. He was too slow, too slow by a fraction of a second. He was just in time to see her die, though._

"_Terri! TERRI!"_

_His anguished screams could have reached heaven, but they could not quite drown out the insanely triumphant laughter of Terri's murderer._

"TERRI!" the boy known as Peter Allen and Mercury screamed, waking from his nightmare but still in the grip of terror.

There was no point in sleeping, the youngest of the next generation of speedsters, reflected. Not only had he spent the past week since his return from the Speed Force too wired to sleep, every attempt was halted by a nightmare. The nightmare was a twisted view of Pietro Allen's memories, the memories of the night his world had shattered.

_I couldn't be like that,_ Peter thought. _I'm me. I'm Peter Allen. I'm Mercury. I can't be a killer. It's not in me._

His dark musings were interrupted by a voice at his door.

"Peter?"

"Terri," Peter murmured in relief. "Come in."

The door slid open and Theresa Logan, dressed in a camisole and cotton pants, entered the room. She climbed onto Peter's bed, curling up against him.

"You were screaming," she whispered. "The nightmare?"

"Yeah," Peter confirmed. "I don't . . . I don't want to lose you."

"You won't lose me," Terri whispered.

"How can you be so sure of that?" Peter asked. "How can anyone be so certain that they won't die tomorrow, especially when they do what we do?"

"You're scared you'll turn into that other Mercury who took your place when you were in the Speed Force," Terri replied.

"He scared me," Peter admitted.

"He scared me, too," Terri murmured.

"The scariest thing is that he and I weren't so different before you died," Peter went on. "It was after you died that he lost it. It was like a world without you was so painful to him that the only way he could deal with it was to take it out on criminals." He sighed. "Even scarier, some of it made sense. Why do we have to entrust people who are obviously going to keep on killing and keep on hurting people to a system that isn't equipped to deal with them?"

Terri looked at him askance. "Are you sure you're you?"

"Fairly," Peter replied. "It's just that his memories and mine are mixed together. Most of them are similar, so I can hardly tell which are mine and which are his." He held her tightly. "If I lose you, I don't know what'll keep me from becoming him."

Terri wanted to tell him that he wouldn't lose her, but he was right when he said that it was impossible to be sure of that. She just let him hold her, hoping that the warmth of her body would be enough to comfort him.

* * *

Morning came and with it school. Peter Allen found himself sitting in class, utterly unable to stay still. Instead of concentrating on the lesson, his body was vibrating.

"Mr. Allen," the teacher, Mr. Aparo, spoke. "Do you mind not turning into a living vibrator in class?"

The phrase "living vibrator" caused a lot of the students to laugh.

Peter growled under his breath, forcing his body into stillness.

"Thank you," Mr. Aparo said. "Now if you'll turn to page 85 . . ."

Peter ran out of class, moving faster than a bullet. The only evidence of his disappearance was a soft, almost imperceptible breeze in his wake. Once he was out of the school building, he kept running, running and running around the world.

No matter how fast or how much he ran, it seemed as though he still had energy to spare.

He returned to class five minutes later, taking his seat as though he'd just gone for a bathroom break.

"Mr. Allen, where were you?" Mr. Aparo asked.

"Huh, what are you talking about?" Peter asked.

"I'm talking about the fact that when I turned around three minutes ago you weren't there," Mr. Aparo replied. "Now you can go to the principal's office for using your powers to ditch class."

Peter glared at him and went to Principal Alderman's office.

* * *

"Ah, Mr. Allen," she greeted him. "I've wanted to see you since your illustrious return from the grave."

"I wasn't exactly in a coffin," Peter said.

"Well, the world seemed to believe you were dead," Alderman answered. "Anyway, it seems like you were using your powers to skip class. This is the third time in a week. What's wrong?"

"You actually sound like you care," Peter sneered.

"Not really," Alderman remarked. "It's just that, aside from when you and the little green girl are getting 'busy' with one another on school grounds you're better behaved than some of your Titan friends. I'd like to know what possessed you to skip class. Do you really think everyone is so much slower than you that they won't notice if you're absent?"

Peter merely stared at her in stony silence.

"Since it's the third time so far, I'll have to suspend you from school," Alderman said. "You can gather your things and go home for the rest of this week and all of the next."

"Sure," Peter answered. "This place bores me, anyway, and you know something else?" He rose from his seat and locked eyes with her. "You bore me, too."

* * *

A split second later, he was out of the classroom and gathering his things at his locker. Once he'd filled his backpack, he slung it on his shoulder and sped out of the school, returning to Titans Tower.

_Now that I've got all this time on my hands, I ought to pay a visit to Schuyler,_ he thought. He sped out of the Tower, reaching Schuyler's house in mere minutes.

He rang the doorbell and waited. About thirty seconds later, Schuyler's father answered.

"Hi, Peter," he greeted.

"How's Schuyler?" Peter asked.

"Right to the point, aren't you?" Schuyler's father remarked. "That's ok; I like directness in a person. He's almost ready to return to school."

"May I see him?" Peter inquired gently.

"Sure, but may I ask what you're doing out of school?" Schuyler's father asked.

"Taking some time off," Peter answered. "Being dead kind of takes it out of you."

"That's understandable," Schuyler's father said. "Come on in."

Peter entered the house and went straight upstairs to Schuyler's room. He knocked on the door gently.

"It's me, Peter. You mind if I come in?"

"Sure!" Schuyler's voice answered somewhat hoarsely.

Peter opened the door and entered, seeing Schuyler still in bed.

"You're looking better than the last time I saw you," Peter commented.

"Yeah," Schuyler answered. "Detox may be a bitch, but after that, there's nowhere to go but up. Hey, I hear you caught the guy who was selling that crap."

"Wasn't me, per se," Peter amended. "More like a psychotic twin brother."

"Same difference," Schuyler replied.

"You saying I'm insane?" Peter asked, falsely angry.

"I'm saying you're close enough to it," Schuyler answered. "While I'm flattered that you're willing to skip school for me, won't Alderman get on your ass for that?"

"She suspended me for skipping class for the third time in a week," Peter admitted.

"What were you skipping class for?" Schuyler asked.

Peter sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know what's wrong with me, but ever since I came back from the Speed Force, I haven't been able to sleep. I've got more energy in me than before and I can't stay still for very long anymore. It's taking all the will I have to keep myself here."

"You know, if it's a problem, I'm ok by myself," Schuyler said.

"No, it's not you, man," Peter said. "It's me. I'm faster than I was before and my body's having a hard time coping with the speed."

Suddenly, his communicator beeped. He withdrew the communicator from the back of his belt and answered. "Mercury."

"_We've got trouble,"_ Nightstar's voice replied. _"Meet us at Silver Ave."_

"Got it," Peter answered, closing the communicator. "I gotta go."

"S'ok," Schuyler said. "Save somebody for me, man."

Peter dashed out, accelerating toward Silver Avenue. As he ran, he decided to pull out a trick he'd learned from Pietro. He smiled.

"Won't they be surprised?"

* * *

A blast of crimson heat struck Samara's umbrakinetic shield.

A car lifted by electromagnetic force flew at Nightstar, who sliced it apart with a purple energy garrote.

Shards of ice were melted by jets of flame from Inferno.

A young man wrapped his malleable body around Beast Girl, squeezing the life out of her until she morphed into a fly and flew out of his suddenly-much-looser grip.

A jet of green flame was bisected by Bladefire's blue energy sword.

Emerald bullets from emerald guns were dodged by Cipher.

If one had to guess the Titans' opponents by powers alone, they would conclude that the young heroes were battling Superman, Static, Ice, Plastic Man, Fire, and Green Lantern, all of whom had been members of the Justice League at one point or another. However, they would be very wrong . . . for the Titans were not dealing with the Justice League.

They were dealing with six young punks who'd taken "meta-steroids" – drugs that could alter normal human physiology in such a way that they gained superhuman powers. Much of the time, those powers were based on those possessed by prominent superheroes.

Just as Cipher was about to dodge another emerald bullet, said bullet was caught by a silver-fingered blue glove.

He looked up in slight astonishment and amusement. "Mercury?"

"Yeah," the platinum-haired speedster replied.

Mercury's new costume was a silver-and-blue full-body suit. The blue part covered his shoulders and much of his torso, extending to the insides of his thighs and the outsides of his arms. His hands were covered by silver-fingered blue gloves that extended to halfway up his forearms and his feet were covered in blue knee-high boots. His mask had stayed more or less the same, still marked by large goggle-like semitransparent lenses and silver lightning caps on the ears.

The Green Lantern-imitator continued firing his emerald guns at Mercury, who just caught the bullets at hyper-speed.

"The only weakness of a Green Lantern's power is that it requires a hell of a lot of concentration and willpower," Mercury remarked. "Let's see how well you can concentrate against this."

He zoomed toward the emerald imitator and attacked him in a flurry of hyper-fast blows. The imitator was, as Mercury had predicted, unable to concentrate against a speedster's attack and was shortly dispatched.

"That's one," he said. He scanned the battlefield, only to find the Plastic Man-imitator wrapping his elongated neck around Beast Girl's face, trying to suffocate her.

Before the Plastic Man-imitator knew it, Mercury was on him, a flurry of brutal punches and kicks charged with enough inertia to land with superhuman force assaulting him. The young tough tried to shift his way out of Mercury's furious battering, but the young speedster was simply too fast and unrelenting.

A blast of heat vision turned Mercury's attention away from the malleable thug and to the Superman-imitator. He manipulated the air molecules around him into a shield that deflected his heat vision.

"I dare you to try that again," Mercury hissed, his eyes alight with killing intent.

The Superman-imitator glared and fired again, only to receive an unpleasant surprise. The aforementioned unpleasant surprise was Mercury's hand covering his eyes the instant before he'd fired, forcing the heat to turn on his eyes. He screamed in agony as the heat seared his optic nerves, blinding him.

"I still have super-hearing, you little –" the Superman-imitator started to say, before Mercury boxed his ears in a super-speed motion, delivering the blow with enough proportional force to burst his eardrums.

"Now you're both blind and deaf," Mercury sneered before whirling with tornado-like speed to punch the Plastic Man-imitator, who collapsed in a malleable heap upon being struck. "Who's next?"

"You _could_ try leaving some to the rest of us," Samara jibed.

Before the speedster could respond to that, his eyes suddenly glowed with lightning-like emissions and his body began to crackle with lightning. He collapsed, screaming in agony.

The remaining three meta-steroid users chose this as the opportunity to gang up on Mercury, brutalizing his agonized form while he could barely defend himself. Fortunately for him, a giant wave of flame from Inferno persuaded them that they'd be better off running for their lives.

"Mercury!" Beast Girl exclaimed, running to him.

"I hate to state the obvious," Cipher said, "but we have to get him back to the Tower."

_

* * *

The world was one giant whirlwind and Mercury was reaping it._

_Ghostly presences swirled around him, calling out to him, crying for help._

_Creatures of evil grasped at him, trying to pull him down into their realm._

_A light shone upon him and gentle yet strong hands pulled him away from the creatures and into that light._

The speedster suddenly snapped back into the real world, sweating, out of breath, and lying on a cot in the infirmary.

"You're awake," Bladefire greeted.

"What happened?" Mercury asked.

The other Titans looked at each other, all silently asking, "You wanna be the one to tell him?"

"I did some tests on your biochemistry," Inferno finally answered. "When you came back from the Speed Force, you did so with even greater speed than before and new ways of applying it. Unfortunately, that had some side effects. You haven't been able to sleep or stay still this past week, have you?"

"Yeah," Mercury admitted.

"That's because your body's struggling to adapt to the increased kinetic energy," Inferno explained. "If you were an adult, it'd be easier, but your body is still developing and therefore it can't adapt as easily. That'll ultimately be fatal to you."

"Are you saying that I shouldn't be using my speed anymore?" Mercury asked.

"That's exactly what he's saying," Nightstar replied. "I can't have you endangering yourself out there. As of now, you're off-duty until further notice."

"That's not fair!" Mercury exclaimed, getting off the cot. "I can still –"

"Not if you're dead," Samara harshly cut him off. "Listen to her. This is for your own good."

Mercury muttered something under his breath.

"What was that?" Samara asked, daring him to repeat it by her tone.

"Nothing," the speedster replied bitterly. "Just leave. Leave me alone."

"Fine," Samara answered.

Beast Girl looked at Mercury sadly, wanting to stay with him, but Samara gently pulled her away. The other Titans filed out after them, leaving Mercury by himself.

The young speedster ruminated on his visions. He'd seen ghosts, monstrosities that looked as though they came from hell, and almost heaven itself. Was it all just some messed-up delusion, or was it something more?

"_Help me,"_ a voice whispered to him.

"Who's there?" Mercury asked.

"_Help me,"_ the voice repeated.

"Who are you?" Mercury asked.

"_Help me,"_ the voice repeated.

"Goddammit, answer me!" Mercury yelled. "Who are you?"

A faint, ethereal mist seemed to form in front of him, growing into a humanoid shape and then taking on definite human features. Long reddish-pink hair, green eyes, a button nose, pale lips, small ears, clothes akin to those a so-called Goth would wear, and five-fingered hands.

"_Leila,"_ the ghostly figure, who was most definitely female, answered.

"Why are you following me?" Mercury asked.

"_You can see me,"_ Leila replied. _"I need your help."_

"What makes you think I can help?" Mercury asked. "In case you weren't paying attention, Nightstar just sidelined me because my powers are toxic to me."

"_You can see me,"_ Leila answered.

"I might not be good at this, but I know someone who can help," Mercury said. "Let's just hope he's ready for an impromptu visit."

He sped out of the Tower, the sight of his signature blue-white lightning trail making Samara mutter, "That idiot."

* * *

Mercury ran down to Sacramento, where he saw a dark-haired young man in stage magician's garb shout, "_Sllaberif!"_

Fireballs materialized in the magician's hands and he threw them at a hulking creature, which seemed to resemble a shadow with glowing green eyes. The creature bellowed and charged him.

"_Deeps!"_ the magician shouted and suddenly dodged the creature with superhuman speed. "_Hsals!_"

Suddenly, a gaping slash wound emerged in the creature's torso, causing it to bellow in pain and flee.

"Yeah, you'd better run," the magician remarked.

"Zatara," Mercury greeted.

"Hey, Pete," Zatara II greeted. He looked next to Mercury and saw Leila. "Ah, so you're here about a girl, and a dead one at that. What's the matter, Petey, living girls don't do it for you?"

"Very funny, asshole," Mercury grumbled. "Just so you know, she's not my girlfriend. She came to me because I could see her."

Zatara's sarcastic demeanor faded. "You've seen past the veil."

"The veil?" Mercury echoed. "What veil? I just had a bunch of screwed-up visions."

"The veil dividing life and death and the physical world from the metaphysical world," Zatara clarified. "Come with me. We have a lot to discuss."

* * *

Mercury followed Zatara back to his apartment, fighting down the painful cramps caused by the use of his speed. Once inside, Zatara turned to him and Leila.

"Now, you mind explaining just what you need help with?" he asked.

"_That demon you fought was the one that killed me,_" Leila replied. "_I know because my friends and I summoned it. We thought it'd be fun to play at summoning a demon. I mean, they wouldn't sell the real books to ordinary girls like us, right?_"

Zatara snorted contemptuously. "Should have known better. The real secret of magic, girl . . . any puss could do it, but it takes a certain amount of skill to do it right. Let me guess, you knew the summoning spell, but you didn't know the control spell."

If Leila weren't a ghost, she might have blushed. As it was, she sheepishly confirmed his deduction with a faint "yes."

"Always have the control spell ready when you do a summoning," Zatara said. "That's how you prevent dying at the hands of a demon that goes on to rampage through freaking Sacramento."

"How exactly do we stop this thing?" Mercury asked. "What's it even called?"

"It's a shadow demon," Zatara replied. "It lives in the darkness and kills only under its cover."

"What's it called?" Mercury questioned.

"Magra," Zatara answered.

Before Mercury could ask any further questions, he found himself in an entirely different world than he'd been before.

* * *

It was a bleak landscape, dusty red ground and slightly darker-colored sky, wind whistling malevolently.

"What is this?" he asked.

"My domain," a cultured, suave voice answered.

Mercury whirled and saw a man dressed in white with neatly cut blond hair and icy blue eyes.

"Holy crap," he uttered. "I'm standing in front of the freaking Devil!"

"Please, call me Lucifer," the Devil responded.

"What do you want with me?" Mercury asked.

"Just your ear," Lucifer replied.

"You wanna cut off my ear?" Mercury wondered in horror.

The sound that came out of the fallen angel's mouth was a darkly melodious laugh. "Not quite, Peter Maxwell Allen. What I want with you is something else entirely. I want you to be my knight, my soldier of the lightning."

"Would I have to do a whole bunch of evil acts for your sake?" Mercury asked. "Tempt people to the dark side, kill anyone who gets in your way, etc.?"

"Yes, you'd have to do all that and more," Lucifer confirmed.

"And what makes you think I'd agree to any of that?" Mercury asked.

"You're dying," Lucifer replied. "Your own power is tearing you apart and if you desire to protect your precious Theresa, you will have to stay alive. I can give you that. I can stabilize your power and give you even greater power, power beyond your wildest imagination. All you have to do is accept it."

Before Mercury could give him an answer, he found himself back in Zatara's apartment.

* * *

"_You vanished,"_ Leila said. _"Where did you go?"_

"I was in hell," Mercury answered, deeply shaken. "I met the Devil. The freaking _Devil!_"

"Relax, man," Zatara said.

"'Relax'?" Mercury repeated. "'Relax'? How do I relax when I got Lucifer after me?"

Zatara paused. "That changes things a bit." He sighed. "Time I explained to you how the world _really_ works."

"You sound like my father," Mercury muttered.

Zatara chuckled before he cleared his throat.

"Here's how it goes. Eons ago, the forces that governed good and evil – call them God and the Devil or whatever else you like – waged war. Entire segments of the universe were obliterated because the power they brought to bear on each other was so immense. But one day . . . humans came along and with them, a new battlefield.

"The battlefield I speak of is the human soul. Instead of outright war, Good and Evil would act through spiritual agents – call them angels and demons, if the Judeo-Christian context is your thing – to influence humans, to sway humans to one side or the other. A very small percentage of humans are purely good and will never stray from that. Similarly, a very small percentage of humans are purely evil and they'll never deviate from that. The rest of us fall in the middle, some of us edging closer to good or evil but all of us just as capable of being swayed in either direction.

"Somehow, your speed has evolved to the point that you can more-or-less freely walk between the physical and metaphysical worlds. This makes you a special target for these forces. You can see them and they can see you."

Mercury swore.

"That's just the background," Zatara said. "Right now, we need to find that Magra bastard and shut him down."

"You know how?" Mercury asked.

"Yeah," Zatara replied. "But . . . it's with my cousin Mara Masters."

"What's wrong with her?" Mercury asked.

"She's a relative on my father's side of the family," Zatara replied, "and my mother doesn't want me having anything to do with my father's side of the family."

"Oh, yeah," Mercury remarked. "Your dad's John Constantine."

"My dad gets a bad rap," Zatara said. "They say he's a con artist, a trickster, someone who'll walk away with a smile before you even notice the knife in your back. They're probably right." He pulled out a square of nicotine gum and popped it into his mouth, chewing on it. "For Avia's sake. She didn't like kissing someone who 'tasted like an ashtray.'"

"What happened between you two?" Mercury asked.

"I'm bad news," Zatara replied. "That's what happened. I inherited my old man's curse – everyone close to me dies. That's why I keep away from my mom. That's why I broke up with Avia. I couldn't let her end up dead on account of me."

"Don't you think Avia can defend herself?" Mercury inquired. "No offense, but she could kick your ass easy."

"In a physical contest, you'd find very few people who could match her," Zatara answered. "But this is the world of spirits, the world of demons and angels. It's an entirely different ballgame." He sighed. "Why the hell am I going on about my personal life with you?"

"Never mind," Mercury said. "Where's Mara?"

"In London," Zatara replied. "If I'm right about the time difference, she's probably in one of the clubs in the red-light district finding someone to lay."

"I'll find her," Mercury said. "Just . . . what does she look like?"

"Dark red hair with lighter red tips," Zatara answered. "There's hardly anybody else with hair like that, so if you see someone like that where you're going, it's probably her."

Mercury was out like a bolt of lightning, streaking across the Atlantic. He just hoped that he didn't crap out in the middle of his run.

* * *

To his incredible relief, he didn't. Once in London, he streaked toward the red-light district. One of the mixed blessings of being a superhero was that one became very streetwise in a relatively short period of time, learning the places to go to get in trouble like the back of one's hand.

He went for the seediest club he could find . . . and was rather shocked by what he saw.

The speedster saw people dressed in either skintight fabrics or in barely anything, writhing against each other on the dance floor or in very intimate positions on the strategically positioned couches. He found himself blushing at the debauchery he witnessed and happy as hell that the lighting was such that no one could see him do so.

He looked around, searching for a head of dark red hair with lighter red streaks. His search was rewarded with the sight of a young woman with that exact hair color, dressed in a black buckled corset and matching leather hot pants with knee-high platform heels and snuggling against a blond young man in an unbuttoned leather vest and pants on a couch.

He began walking in her direction, only to be halted by a girl dressed in entirely too little clothing for his tastes.

"Nice outfit," she complimented sultrily. "How would you like to go somewhere we can get a little more . . . intimate?"

"Thanks," Mercury replied, still blushing. "But no thanks."

He slipped out of her sight and continued walking in the redhead's direction, plopping down on the couch where she and her lover-to-be were sitting.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hey," Mara Masters greeted, blue eyes alight with mischief. "There's always room for one more."

"Not what I'm here for," Mercury answered. He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "Your cousin sent me."

"You mean Johnny boy?" Mara asked.

"Yeah," Mercury confirmed.

"I'll catch up with you later, love," Mara whispered to her lover-to-be.

"That's all right," he said. "I can keep myself entertained while I wait for you."

* * *

Later, Mercury was inside Mara's apartment. While small, it was rather well-kept.

"Came all the way to London just for li'l ol' me," Mara remarked. "And you're not here to screw my brains out. I'm kinda surprised." She smirked. "Are you that fast in _everything_ you do?"

Mercury blushed, catching the double entendre. "Not quite. I can slow myself down when I need to. How else would I interact with the world?" He paused. "But that's not what I'm here for."

"I know," Mara said. "You wanna know how to kill this Magra beast."

"Yeah," Mercury said.

Mara opened her closet door and reached back behind her clothes, many of which were not something any father would want his daughter caught in, to reveal a hidden panel. The panel slid back, revealing a row of mystical objects and weapons. She took down a dagger and held it out to Mercury.

"What's on the blade?" he asked.

"The killing words," Mara replied. "The words must be driven into him. That's why the blade was made."

"All right," Mercury said, taking the blade. He was rather shocked when Mara pressed herself to him and kissed him on the lips, tongue and all. When she pulled away, he gasped for breath. "What was that about?"

"Just felt like it," Mara answered. "You're too cute for words. Your girlfriend must be lucky."

"Uh, yeah," Mercury said. "See ya." He bolted out of the apartment, speeding back to Zatara's apartment. Once there, he collapsed in agony, the lightning glow manifesting in his eyes and body.

* * *

When he recovered, he was on Zatara's bed, the magician sitting next to him.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" Zatara asked.

"My powers are killing me," Mercury replied. "I was in the Speed Force for a while and when I came back, I ended up fighting a doppelganger who'd gone nuts because his universe's Beast Girl was killed by one of our enemies. We ended up merging for a bit, and that took my powers up a few notches along with the time I spent in the Speed Force. Apparently, it's a few notches too many, because it's starting to rip me apart."

"And you came all the way here, anyway," Zatara said. "You got diamond rocks. Soon as you're recovered, we're gonna get that Magra freak."

"How's Leila?" Mercury asked.

"She's been a dear," Zatara replied.

"_Yeah, I've been really good,"_ Leila agreed.

"Let's get Magra," Mercury said. "I got the dagger."

"Did she kiss you?" Zatara asked. "Because you got some lipstick on your face."

Mercury blushed and wiped it off.

* * *

Later on, the speedster and the mage were following the shadow demon as it looked for prey.

"It's almost daylight, so Magra knows it's gotta hurry," Zatara said. "It's no better than a human trying to sneak in one last smoke even though he knows he's gotta start that cold turkey stuff."

"When do we make our move?" Mercury asked.

"Now," Zatara replied. "_Nrub!_"

The shadow demon was instantly aflame, causing it to let out an inhuman roar of pain. Mercury was instantly on him, impaling the creature with the dagger. Magra's roars of agony intensified in volume as spidery cracks emerged throughout his jet-black form. Finally, the creature exploded in a shower of light and green ooze.

"_You look gross,"_ Leila said.

"I know," Mercury grumbled. "Think you can move on now?"

"_You want me to leave?"_ Leila asked in mock hurt.

Mercury stammered.

"_I'm just playing,"_ Leila said. _"I know I gotta leave. This world's not meant for me, like that song said."_ She floated to Mercury and laid an ephemeral kiss on his cheek. _"Bye."_

That was the last Mercury saw of Leila, as her spirit had passed on to the next world.

* * *

By the time Mercury returned to Titans Tower, he was confronted by six very peeved Titans.

"Where . . .

"The hell . . .

"Have you . . .

"BEEN?" Nightstar asked.

"Out," Mercury replied.

"Out?" Nightstar echoed. "_Out?_ You're shortening your lifespan every time you use your powers and you don't even care, do you? Do you want to die or something?"

"Your anger is very palpable," Mercury quipped. "Mind if I leave you to regain your bearings so that we may converse in a more civilized manner?"

"Don't play with me, Peter," Nightstar growled. "I am seriously not in the mood."

She did something very surprising, then and there.

She hugged him. Held him tightly as though he would fade away if she stopped holding on.

Mercury blushed. As a red-blooded male, he had to admit that Nightstar had figured in a lot of the idle fantasies that he'd had prior to starting a relationship with Beast Girl. After all, both of her parents had been exceptionally stunning people and she'd inherited all that striking beauty, so he wasn't exactly alone in that idle fantasizing. Still, he'd admitted to himself that he'd never had a chance with her; besides, Beast Girl had been the girl of his deeper dreams and wishes, anyway.

And this . . . this was just flustering.

"Promise me you'll stay back until we find a way to stabilize your powers, ok?" Nightstar asked softly.

"S-sure," Mercury stuttered.

* * *

Mercury devoted the next two weeks to testing his theory on how to stabilize his powers. Since he was suspended from school and from his Titan duties, he had plenty of free time.

On the last day of the second week, he was ready.

Before him was a tub of chemical solution, made up of the same substances that had spilled on Barry Allen and Wally West just before the lightning bolts that gave them their powers struck. If anyone had heard his theory, they would have most likely asked him where the lightning would come from.

Fortunately, there was a panel inside the tub that when touched would send jolts of electricity through the chemical solution.

He breathed deeply . . . and lowered himself into the chemical solution. Just before he could immerse himself completely, he heard the door slide open, eliciting a mumbled swear.

"Peter, what are you doing?" Inferno asked.

"Stabilizing my powers," Mercury replied as though it were nothing out of the ordinary.

"With a tub of chemicals?" Inferno asked.

"It's actually gonna be an electrochemical bath," Mercury amended. "Hey, it's how my great-grandfather and Wally got their powers, so it ought to stabilize mine."

"I'm waiting for the part where this starts making sense," Inferno replied.

"It's simple," Mercury said. "Those accidents linked them to the Speed Force. I was born with a connection to the Speed Force, but that connection was strengthened by my time within it and then overloaded by my merging with Pietro. An electrochemical bath – like the ones that gave Wally and Great-Grandpa Barry their abilities – will create a second connection to the Speed Force that'll overlap my natural connection and stabilize it."

"That's pretty clever," Inferno remarked with an impressed grin. "You're a hell of a lot smarter than you like to act."

"Hey, my father's a goddamn encyclopedia," Mercury said with a mock-offended tone. "And my mother's pretty smart, too."

"I'm sure," Inferno said. "But I'm staying here so you don't get yourself dead."

"Fine," Mercury said. He immersed himself completely and reached to his side to hit the panel. Five seconds later, electricity surged through the chemicals and he let out a watery scream.

Five seconds later it was over and he was drifting in the solution. He barely felt Inferno reach inside and pull him out.

"Pete? Pete?" Inferno asked.

Three seconds later, the pyrokinetic heard his speedy friend say, "If you call me Pete, I reserve the right to call you Jerry."

"You know I don't like being called Jerry," Inferno said.

"Just playing," Mercury answered, grinning widely at Inferno.

* * *

End Notes: That's pretty much it.

If you're wondering how Mercury could see dead people and trip into hell, it's on account of the fact that his speed has increased to the point that he cannot always be contained in one dimension. His vibration patterns have also become somewhat unstable, thus meaning that they will sometimes match those of another dimension and he will end up seeing into it or physically in it. This state was inspired by the Flash of Kingdom Come, who had achieved a similar level of power. I might be able to mine that for comic relief.

Zatara II, in case you haven't been able to guess, is the son of Zatanna Zatara and the grandson of Giovanni "John" Zatara. As stated in the text of the story, his father is John Constantine, whose adventures you can read in the DC-Vertigo title Hellblazer. His short-lived relationship with Avia, whom you might remember from her short appearance in Chapter 8/Side Story 3, was borrowed from The Kingdom, which is the somewhat maligned sequel to Kingdom Come.

If you've seen the film Constantine, you might have noted that I borrowed Zatara's explanation to Mercury on the nature of the war between good and evil from the context of the film. However, I meant his use of the phrase "the Judeo-Christian context" as a little dig at the makers of the film for framing it in a Judeo-Christian context to the exclusion of the other mystical elements that often found their way into the comics.

I got the idea of "meta-steroids" from Mutant Growth Hormone – a drug in the Marvel Universe that temporarily grants an ordinary person powers similar to those of a known superhero or super-villain.

As for Lucifer, my take on him was inspired by his portrayal in the recently ended Vertigo series of the same name. The clothing was largely from his interpretation in Constantine.

That's all out of me. See you later.


	24. Side Story 8: Rose and Thorn

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 8: "Rose and Thorn"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters Nightstar, Mercury, and Hawk II do not belong to me. The concept behind Rose and Thorn does not belong to me, either, but the character I've invented as the latest Rose and Thorn does. Nightstar and Hawk II belong to DC Comics, while Mercury belongs jointly to DC and Marvel.

Author's note: Of the Grayson twins, Nightstar gets a lot of my focus. In this side story, Bladefire will be getting the majority of my attentions. I do have to flesh him out a bit and this is a good opportunity to get inside his head, especially as he relates to girls. And man . . . will he be relating to a lot of girls in this story.

Now let's have fun putting him through his paces.

* * *

Heather Piers stood on a table in the outdoor dining area of Jump City High, surrounded by a large number of her fellow students. She had a piece of paper in her hands and was reading its contents to the rapt audience.

"'He lays me down on the bed/The fabric of the sheets soft against my naked skin/He kisses me/His scarlet tresses fall forward, blanketing me in their silkiness/I arch against him in delight/Eagerly awaiting his –'"

The beach-blonde girl stopped. "What I wouldn't give to be in that situation." She snickered.

At this point, a girl of average height with curly dark tresses and darker eyes broke through the crowd, wearing baggy clothes that hid her figure from onlookers. "Give that back! That's mine!"

"Excuse me, _Rosita_ –" Heather spoke, accenting the name with a mocking Spanish accent. "– but I found that in Joh'n Grayson's locker. Did you misplace it? Or were you hoping he'd find it and be utterly spellbound by your writing skills?"

"Give. It. Back." Rosita spat out each word as though she was spitting bullets.

Heather let out a brusque laugh. "Please. Like he'd ever fall for someone like you."

"I think _I'd_ be a better judge of who I'd fall for than you," a stoic, almost emotionless voice answered.

The crowd shifted and a boy with long red hair in a ponytail and indigo eyes moved into view.

"And if you don't mind, I'd like it very much if you gave Rosita back her paper," the red-haired boy added sternly.

With a chastised expression on her face, Heather gave Rosita back her paper as the crowd parted and went their separate ways.

"Vipers," he muttered. "Vipers and vultures."

"Thanks," Rosita said softly.

"It was nothing," the boy – Bladefire – responded. "I don't like her. Spoiled diva."

Rosita snickered lightly.

"Anyway, I'm gonna get back to my friends," Bladefire said. "You're welcome to join us . . ."

"No, thanks," Rosita answered. "I'm . . . I'm more comfortable by myself."

"Oh, ok," Bladefire answered nonchalantly.

The two went their separate ways, Rosita going back to her own lonely table and Bladefire going to join the other Titans.

"She likes you," Cipher stated simply.

Bladefire merely gave him an inscrutable stare.

"I'm with him," Inferno said. "You ought to have asked for her number."

"I don't do civilians," Bladefire answered.

Mercury laughed out loud. "Oh, God! Do you know how that sounded?"

"Yes," Bladefire replied. "This proves that you have a very perverse mind, Peter. In all seriousness, involving yourself with a civilian is not a good idea. It ends up leaving them vulnerable to the dangers of this life we lead."

"My and Inferno's dads both married civilians," Mercury stated. "You gonna call them wrong for doing that?"

"Not quite," Bladefire answered. "I'm just not going to do that myself."

"So you'd rather date someone like us," Nightstar spoke up.

"If I had to, yes," Bladefire replied. "But I've done just fine without being romantically involved with anyone."

"What about friends with benefits?" Beast Girl asked. "You can have a friend with benefits, can't you?"

"That wouldn't work out for me, either," Bladefire responded. "One of us would inevitably become attached to the other, jealousy would set in, and it would turn into a big mess. Better not to have attachments to anyone."

"You're attached to us," Samara reminded him.

"You're different," Bladefire answered. "You're my friends, my family. I prefer to keep it at that."

"You're going to end up very lonely if you keep yourself restricted to us," Nightstar said. "It's better if you make some connections outside us. Maybe with a special someone?"

"Not interested," Bladefire answered curtly.

* * *

That night, Nightstar watched as Bladefire immersed himself in tracking down the supplier of the meta-steroids. With a bitter sigh, she stalked off to find Beast Girl and Samara.

"This has gone on long enough," she said after gathering the other two Titan girls in her room.

"What has?" Beast Girl asked.

"Joh'n," Nightstar replied. "He's gonna end up like Grandpa Bruce. Stuck in a lonely cave, living for nothing but 'the mission.'"

"What do you suggest we do about it?" Samara asked. "If he's happy like that, that should be fine by us."

"_Nobody_ should have to live like that," Nightstar answered firmly. "_Nobody._ As much as I don't like the fact that my dad married Barbara, at least he's trying not to let his grief over my mom turn him into a copy of Grandpa Bruce. Joh'n . . . we need to find somebody for him. Somebody who can make him take a break from all this and realize that he has something to live for besides this."

"You are aware that we can't force him to go out with someone if he doesn't want to," Samara stated.

Nightstar went to her PC and opened a program, typing rapidly on the keyboard.

"What are you doing?" Beast Girl asked.

"Finding somebody for Joh'n," Nightstar replied.

"Holy crap," Samara drawled. "A dating program."

The screen showed images of three young women. One was a dark-haired girl in a black leotard with a red "S"-shield on her chest and a red cape around her shoulders. Another was a girl with reddish-pink hair and dressed in white and red. The third was a blonde girl dressed in flame-decaled skintight red and a goggle-styled birdlike mask.

"Them?" Samara asked mildly.

"Why not?" Nightstar replied. "According to the program, they're most compatible for Joh'n. I'll just call them up and set up the dates and times."

"Is this how you picked Raziel?" Beast Girl asked.

Nightstar aimed a death glare at Beast Girl that would have made her figurative grandfather proud.

"I wonder what Clark will have to say about Joh'n going out on a date with his little girl," Samara remarked with an amused smirk.

* * *

The next night, Bladefire was flying solo . . . literally. In addition to working the meta-steroid case for the Titans, he was also following shipments of heroin and cocaine that were coming into the city. From the look of it, he'd have to say that it was one of the infamous Colombian drug cartels.

He fought down a shudder. Super-villains with delusions that they could run the entire world were one thing, but sometimes humans themselves could just be utterly _inhuman._

_And these guys are about the worst,_ he thought.

His vision was extremely acute, far more so than a human's would be, and so he could see what was going on just fine from his vantage point in the air. Every last little detail was open to his eyes.

_How many kilos is that?_ Bladefire asked himself.

As he pondered that question, he noticed a figure skulking in the dark. The aforementioned figure didn't exactly look like he – or she – belonged there.

Yes, upon closer look, it definitely was a _she –_ a she with curly black hair and dressed in skintight black with white stitching reminiscent of the thorns of a rose.

The black-clad female snuck up behind one of the men guarding the drug shipment and pulled out a switchblade. Seeing the glinting blade, Bladefire descended swiftly, which alerted the shippers and the guards.

The guards pulled out their weapons first and opened fire. Unfortunately, an experienced flyer and acrobat such as Bladefire was very difficult to hit.

As the guards engaged in their firefight, the men who were receiving the drug shipment wisely chose to flee with what they were able to load into their vans. Seeing this, Bladefire swore under his breath and continued evading the bullets.

The black-clad female dropped low and kicked one of the guards' legs out from under him. That drew the others' attention to her but before they could begin shooting, she twisted low to the ground and kicked another guard in the stomach. The other guards began shooting at her, but she moved acrobatically, evading the bullets with an agility that bordered on superhuman.

Bladefire materialized an energy sword and sliced apart the guns of a few guards. He whirled into a kick that knocked out one guard. He fired an optic blast that melted the remaining guards' weapons and proceeded to generally incapacitate the lot of them.

The black-clad female lunged at one of the guards that was holding on to consciousness and pinned him, holding a switchblade to his throat.

"If you want to live, you'll tell me where those vans were going." The sentence was spoken with a low, frighteningly yet sultry Spanish accent.

"Not telling you anything, bitch," the guard answered, spitting in her face.

The female wiped the saliva off with one hand while digging the blade into his throat so hard that he began to bleed.

"Where?" she asked. "I won't ask again."

"I'm not telling you," he answered.

"Be that way," she spoke with a cold finality in her voice. Just as she began to slit his throat, Bladefire was there like lightning and he knocked the blade out of her hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked. When he got a good look at her face, his eyes widened slightly in surprise. "Rosita?"

The girl looked at him, dark eyes aglitter with fury. "Thorn."

"All right, _Thorn,_ what do you think you're doing?" Bladefire asked. "That's twice now I've had to prevent you from killing."

"Who do you think you are?" Thorn asked.

"I've been at this for a few years now," Bladefire replied. "I'm more of an expert than you are, but you've got moves. I respect that, but I can't let you kill anyone."

Thorn let out a short, scornful chuckle.

Bladefire knelt down and narrowed his optic blast into a fine laser that cauterized the guard's wound.

"Your compassion is admirable," Thorn acknowledged, "but wasted. Do you know what he'll be doing as soon as he recovers? Helping men like the ones that got away with that shipment do exactly that. Helping them addict people to poison."

"Regrettable," Bladefire answered. "But life is an essential right. And I have no right to say who deserves it more."

He looked up and Thorn was gone.

The half-Tamaranean sighed and flipped open his communicator, tapping into the police frequency.

"JCPD, this is Bladefire. I have some people you might want to bring in for questioning. They'll still be right here when you arrive."

_And to make sure of that . . ._ he added silently as he began the arduous process of tying up the guards with strong-as-steel cords. Only someone with superhuman strength could get out of these and even then they would have some considerable difficulty. Once that was taken care of, he flew away. He wouldn't be able to find that shipment tonight; the men driving the vans had had too much of a head start on him. He figured he'd go back to the Tower, do some investigating, and hopefully get a bead on where the drugs had ended up so that he could shut it down there.

He'd also figure out what was the deal with Rosita, or Thorn as she had called herself tonight.

* * *

The next morning, Bladefire went down for breakfast.

"Three-day weekend today," Mercury said. "I'm gonna kick back, relax, and watch every single DVD I got."

"Sounds good to me," Beast Girl said.

"Figures you two would want to rot your brains out," Samara sneered. "I have to visit the bookstore. Haven't been in a while. You wanna come, Jeremiah?"

"Sure," Inferno replied.

"You can do that later," Nightstar said. "Right now, training exercise. But first, can I have a word with you, Joh'n?"

"All right," Bladefire answered.

Nightstar guided Bladefire into the Main Room, where they could be alone.

"What is it, Mar'i?" Bladefire asked.

"You ought not to spend the rest of your life alone like Grandpa Bruce," Nightstar replied. "So I've taken steps to make sure you won't. Namely, I've got you set up with three girls I know."

"All at once?" Bladefire asked.

"No, you pervert," Nightstar answered with a playful punch to the shoulder. "One at a time. You're going with Hawk tonight and she's got two tickets to Ghostslayer's concert in New York City."

Bladefire silently fumed. "And what, Mar'i, gives you the right to plan my love life?"

"Come on!" Nightstar exclaimed. "Do you really want to be all alone in a cave like Grandpa Bruce?"

"Fine," Bladefire grumbled. "I'll do it. But I promise not to enjoy it."

Nightstar laughed. "I think you'll enjoy it more than you think."

* * *

Before he had to go on his date, he returned to the Titans Tower mainframe, looking up Rosita's records.

He found that her father was Eduardo Varela, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency that had gone undercover to shut down the same drug cartel that was presently operating in the city. The leader of the cartel had discovered his true identity and killed him in a rather gruesome manner. After that, Rosita had been sent to live with her father's brother Fernando, who lived a rather simple life as a mid-level office worker.

_No wonder she wants this cartel shut down so badly,_ he thought. He looked at the clock. It was almost time to get ready.

* * *

That night, Bladefire flew to New York City, dressed in a black denim jacket over a maroon shirt and dark jeans. His hair was styled in a tighter ponytail than usual, almost similar to that of a samurai.

He landed a few blocks away from Madison Square Garden, where he was confronted by a girl dressed in a brown duster over a fishnet suit. A very short leather skirt covered her hips and a tiny black tube top prevented her breasts from being completely exposed. Her hair was reddish-pink and spiked in the back while her green eyes glittered with mischief. A nose ring was her most notable feature, aside from her outrageous outfit.

"Your mother let you go outside looking like that?" was the first thing Bladefire said.

"Mother?" the girl asked with a snort and a rough British accent. "Funny _and_ sexy. Like the look. It's rather 'biker samurai.' 'Cept you're a little too pretty to carry it off that well."

"I assume you're Hawk," Bladefire said.

"Ix-nay on the awk-Hay," the girl hissed. "Not all of us are running around with the public knowing their real name. Call me Holly."

"Holly Daze?" Bladefire quipped.

"Ha, ha, real funny, pretty boy," Holly retorted. "Heh, if I'd known you were gonna be this hot, I might've tried to dress up a little more."

Bladefire raised a tiny, oval eyebrow. "You call that dressing down?"

The two went into Madison Square Garden, awaiting the beginning of the concert. After about fifteen minutes, Ghostslayer arrived, instruments and all, ready to begin the concert.

Only five minutes later did one of the most infamous features of rock concerts begin.

The mosh pit.

And Holly was dragging Bladefire into it.

"Come on, don't be scared, love!" she shouted over the harsh techno-industrial music.

"I am not scared!" Bladefire shouted back. "People just happen to die in those things on occasion!"

"_On occasion!_" Holly echoed. "As in, once in a while! Quit being chicken!"

Bladefire growled. Now, he liked to think he was enlightened. He liked to think that he was beyond the call of his more primitive instincts. However, if there was one thing that men all over the universe were not good at, it was resisting the urge to shut up somebody who wanted to challenge them.

To that end, he marched into the mosh pit with Holly, figuring that his strength would keep him from getting hurt too badly. Holly immediately got into it, merrily jumping about and shoving anyone near her. Bladefire himself had to hold back quite a bit, not wanting to injure anyone. Still, he found it surprisingly enjoyable.

"Fun, isn't it?" Holly shouted over the music.

"Yeah!" Bladefire yelled back.

After the concert was over, Bladefire and Holly went to a nearby CD/DVD store. Holly picked up a CD, scanned it at a listening booth, and put on the headphones, banging her head to the 30-second sample.

"How'd you like the concert, love?" she asked once the sample was finished.

"It was . . . exhilarating," Bladefire admitted. "I had more fun than I expected."

"I did, too," Holly answered. She handed the headphones to Bladefire, who slipped them on his ears. He selected a song and began to listen to the sample, turning down the volume to avoid hurting his sensitive ears.

"Hey, this is pretty good," he said.

As Holly and Bladefire walked out, Holly briefly closed her eyes. Bladefire looked at her in confusion.

"It's Dawn," Holly replied. "She's calling. Looks like she's gotten into a jam. See you later, sexy." She pulled him in for a brief kiss on the lips and was on her way, running down the street. With a cry of "Hawk," her clothes shifted into a skintight white suit with sharp red streamers extending from her shoulders, red gloves and boots, a red belt, and a red mask. She jumped very high into the air and landed on top of a skyscraper, running faster than a normal human possibly could.

Bladefire took off into the air and flew back to Jump City.

_Time to get back to business,_ he thought.

* * *

He returned to Titans Tower and immediately went to the mainframe. He slipped the headset on and scanned the city grid for any heroin/cocaine refinement and distribution centers. He managed to find a few scattered around the city. He mentally instructed the computer to narrow it down to the most likely centers where the cartel would be refining and distributing the heroin and cocaine.

_Not too far off,_ he thought. He removed the headset and exited the Tower, taking flight once again.

* * *

When he reached the refinement center, he found "Thorn" in the middle of a fight with armed guards, who were shooting submachine guns that fired exploding rounds at her. She was dodging extremely well, but her moves were those of a novice. She had not yet learned the finer points of avoiding bullets . . . and she was too close.

Bladefire shaped his energy into a two-sided blade with edges that curved in such a way that the blade vaguely resembled an "S." He threw the blade at the guards' guns, slicing them apart. Because of the design of the blade, it returned to him and he dissipated it.

"Hey, sexy," Thorn greeted with a smirk and a cartwheel. "Thanks for saving me."

Bladefire looked around, seeing much destruction and death around. He sighed with regret before trapping the guards that were attempting to flee in Flexisteel cords.

"I'm going to have to turn you in, you know," he said once he finished. "Can't let killers operate."

"'You work for the devil, you'd best be prepared to die for him,'" Thorn answered. "That was something my father taught me."

"Your father," Bladefire spoke. "Eduardo Varela? Undercover DEA agent? Got himself killed trying to infiltrate this cartel?"

Thorn looked at him askance.

"I decided to track down your records," Bladefire explained. "You don't have to do this, Rosita."

"Rosita's asleep," Thorn answered. "You call me Thorn."

_Rosita's asleep?_ Bladefire echoed silently. _Either she's talking metaphorically . . . or she's serious. X'Hal. I'm dealing with a split personality._

"What's your real name?" Bladefire asked.

"Thorn," Thorn replied.

"I was right," Bladefire murmured. "She really does have a split personality." Speaking aloud, "Look, you've trashed the refinement center. They won't be able to distribute now. I'll call the police and they'll be arrested."

"Do you think the police will come?" Thorn asked. "They've been paid off not to interfere. And if by chance these people should be arrested, all they have to do is call up their lawyers and they'll go free."

"Look, you can get help," Bladefire said.

"Help for what?" Thorn asked harshly. "I don't need help. I need this cartel crippled. And the way to do that is to cut the snake's head off."

"I won't let you kill any more people," Bladefire stated somberly.

"Be that way," Thorn answered. A second later, she was gone . . .

. . . and a second afterward, Bladefire had a foot slamming hard into his stomach. He looked down and saw Thorn balancing herself on one hand, parallel to the ground as her leg was upright, forcefully pushing the foot into his stomach.

Bladefire jumped and flipped back, shifting into a fighting stance. Thorn slid low to the ground and twisted into another kick that Bladefire managed to block. She simply twisted to her other side and kicked him again, but he blocked again. She flipped backward and spun into a sweeping kick that Bladefire managed to jump over, coming down with a brutal strike to the head.

Thorn staggered a bit, trying to regain her bearings. Bladefire seized the opportunity to attack, Thorn defending herself as best as she could despite being disoriented. With one brutal jab to her gut with his knee, Bladefire knocked her unconscious.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He took her in his arms and flew her back to her house, knocking on the door with his free hand.

* * *

A middle-aged man answered it. "Bladefire? What are you doing with Rosita?"

"You need to get some help for her, Mr. Varela," Bladefire answered. "She has a split personality, a very dangerous one."

Fernando Varela sighed. "I was afraid this would happen."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"When I heard that that drug cartel was being attacked, I thought it was her," Fernando explained. "You have to understand, she had a lot of repressed anger over what they had done to her father, my brother. She never talked about it, almost like she preferred not to think about it. All that had to come out somewhere. I'm just sorry . . . it was this."

"Just get her someplace she can get some help," Bladefire said. "I'll do my best to keep it under wraps."

"Thank you," Fernando answered as Bladefire gently gave the still-unconscious Rosita/Thorn to him.

* * *

Bladefire flew away remorsefully, drifting through the sky. The beep of his communicator jarred him out of his thoughts and he grabbed it from his belt, flipping it open.

To his surprise, he saw a very familiar silver-haired young woman, a woman whose singular eye glimmered with sinister amusement. Her rose-colored lips were curled in a wicked smirk and she was biting the tip of her index finger.

"Ravager?" he hissed. "How did you get this frequency?"

"I have my ways, Blade," Ravager answered. "Now why don't you come over so we can . . . talk? I'm sending over the coordinates right now."

Ravager's face vanished, replaced by a map of where she wanted him to go.

_What the hell?_ Bladefire thought. _She wants me to come down to Colombia, huh?_

He programmed the communicator to send a decoy signal, something he had regrettably learned from Nightstar's run as would-be assassin Rubyhawk, before replacing it in his belt and flying down to Colombia at such high speeds that he looked like an indigo streak.

* * *

The coordinates he reached were those of a very large mansion surrounded by smaller cottages, a pool, and other trappings of material success. He looked down and he saw Ravager wading in the deep end of the pool, all the way up to her shoulders. She smirked up at him.

"Why don't you join me, Joh'n?" she asked as he landed beside the pool.

"What are you doing here, Rose?" Bladefire asked.

"The cartel you were pursuing," Ravager replied. "I killed their leader. Combined with you and that girl Thorn, it'll take quite a while for them to set up shop again."

"How did you know about me and Thorn?" Bladefire questioned.

"I like to keep an eye on you," Ravager answered.

"Let me guess, someone hired you," Bladefire deduced dryly, switching from what was a slightly uncomfortable subject for him.

"Well, yes," Ravager replied. "I'm a hired killer, after all. And he was a very bad man, anyway, so I hardly regret it. Now why don't you come in? The water's cold."

Bladefire looked at her hesitantly. Ravager just glided through the pool until she was at its edge.

"Please?" she asked with a smirk. "For me?"

Bladefire crouched to look her in the eye, only that was a mistake because she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into the pool with her. His startled cry, cut off by his plunge, was music to her ears and she laughed merrily.

He rose to the surface, glaring at her through wet bangs.

"That was cold."

"I know," she answered with a smirk.

Bladefire wiped that smirk off her face by pulling her in for a passionate kiss. It was at that moment that he discovered – as he had been somewhat oblivious to it before – that the only stitch of clothing Ravager was wearing was the patch over her missing eye. Ravager pressed her nude form against him, deepening the kiss.

* * *

By the time Bladefire was able to return to Titans Tower, it was close to morning. Feeling worn out by his activities with Ravager, he was looking forward to climbing into bed and getting at least an hour of sleep.

"Hot date?" Samara asked, sitting in the dark.

"Don't you sleep?" Bladefire asked.

"Don't you?" Samara rejoined.

Bladefire sighed and went to his room, where he collapsed on his bed and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

When morning came, Nightstar went to see her twin.

"Enjoy the date with Holly?" she asked, leaning on the doorframe of his room.

"Yes," Bladefire admitted.

"Good," Nightstar answered, "because I have another girl for you to go out with. Remember Mia Cir-El?"

"Supergirl?" Bladefire asked.

"Yeah," Nightstar confirmed. "I just set you up for dinner for two at _Romance_" – she pronounced the name with an impressive affectation of a French accent – "at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It's a pretty ritzy restaurant, so I'd suggest you dig through your wardrobe for a suit. Have fun."

She sauntered off and Bladefire lay down with a sigh.

Oh, well. It wasn't as though he could tell her that he was already involved with someone, considering that someone was an assassin aligned with the Titans' worst foe.

_Romance is hard,_ he thought.

* * *

End Notes: There are really two plots in this story. One is Bladefire confronting "Rose and Thorn" – a girl with a violent second personality. The other is Nightstar trying to set up Bladefire with various super-heroines out of the fear that he'll end up as alone as Bruce Wayne. Of course, she doesn't know that Bladefire's been carrying on a secret relationship with Rose Wilson, alias the Ravager and the "Daughter of Deathstroke," whom animated Titans fans know as Slade.

Hawk is Holly Granger, the more aggressive half of the Hawk and Dove duo. Dove is her older sister Dawn. This present incarnation of the duo was first seen in Teen Titans v3 #22-23, during the Titans' confrontation with Dr. Light, if you need a reference.

The original Rose and Thorn was a villainess who could control plants, a kind of proto-Poison Ivy. For a time, the evil Thorn personality was subdued, but Rose ended up taking her own life to prevent Thorn from hurting her children. The second Rose and Thorn was a vigilante and the inspiration for the Rose and Thorn that appeared in this story.

Mia Cir-El, who has only been mentioned thus far, is a semi-original character. She's based on Cir-El – the Supergirl just prior to the modern revamp of Kara Zor-El – the supposed daughter of Superman from the future. In reality, she was a human girl with Kryptonian DNA grafted to her genetic code; her human name was Mia. Therefore, I combined the two names – as Kryptonian females typically added the names of their fathers or husbands to their own names.

And the blonde in flame-decaled red with the bird-themed mask is Flamebird the Second. Her mother, the original Flamebird, is essentially a tennis star who became a superhero because she was such a big fan of Dick Grayson, the original Robin and now Nightwing.

Anyway, I hope you'll let me know what you thought of this story.


	25. Side Story 9: Son of the Bat

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 9: "Son of the Bat"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The concept of Batman was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, not me. The various Batman-associated characters you will see are the property of DC Comics. That technically includes Nightstar, as she is the figurative granddaughter of Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman. Mercury himself belongs to DC and Marvel via Amalgam Comics.

Author's note: Ever wonder if Batman had a son? A biological son, that is? You'll see him. You'll definitely see him in this. If you're thinking Batman Beyond . . . well, you're half right.

Now on with the story.

* * *

Two teenagers reclined on a large purple blanket out in the park. One was male, silver-haired, and somewhat pale. The other was female, with long wavy black hair and skin like orange-tinted gold. A basket of fruit lay between them.

The silver-haired teen reached into the basket and pulled out a branch of purple grapes. The black-haired teen pulled a grape off and ate it, slowly, teasingly.

"Mar'i . . ." the silver-haired boy spoke.

Mar'i stared at her silver-haired companion through lidded green-on-lime eyes.

"You want one?" she asked.

The silver-haired boy just ate a grape, savoring the flavor.

Mar'i ate another grape in the same teasing manner as she had the first one.

Next to her, the silver-haired boy kept his expression tightly controlled, no matter how much certain parts of him wanted to just kiss that aggravatingly beautiful mouth of hers.

Mar'i took the branch of grapes from her companion and dangled it in front of him, smiling. The silver-haired boy just snatched another grape off the branch and ate it.

"You could try to have some fun," she said.

"I am having fun," he answered.

Mar'i pulled off another grape and placed it between immaculate white teeth, letting it protrude just past her lips.

It was perfectly obvious what she wanted, the silver-haired boy deduced. Was he to give it to her, or was he to let it dangle in the air?

A long silence passed between them and just as the young man started to lean forward, Mar'i looked away.

"What's wrong, Mar'i?" he asked.

Mar'i swallowed the grape.

"Trouble, Raziel," she answered.

Raziel adjusted his expanded vision, looking in multiple directions simultaneously. It only took a few seconds for him to see what Mar'i saw – a mugging in progress.

Both teens rose from the blanket they'd been reclining on and moved toward the mugging, Raziel running and Mar'i flying. However, someone else got there first.

There was a glint of metal and a scream of pain.

"My hand! My hand! You goddamn snot!"

"It'll be your head next."

The two teens heard the sound of running by the time they were upon the scene. There was no one there, save a figure clad completely in black, and he was already on his way to disappearing.

"We'll split up," Mar'i whispered. "You find the mugger, I find the guy with the sword."

Without a word, Raziel ran after the mugger, using preternatural speed to catch up to him. He grabbed the mugger, who was still clutching the wrist of the arm where the wounded hand resided.

"Who was he?" he asked.

"Some freak in black!" the mugger yelled. "I didn't see his face! He just came the hell out of nowhere and sliced my hand!"

Raziel tore off a piece of his jacket and wrapped it around the mugger's wounded hand.

"Come on, you're going to the police," he said. "They'll get some paramedics to take care of that for you."

"The police!" the mugger exclaimed. He slumped. "Aw, crap. This is my second strike, man."

"Hm," Raziel murmured as he began taking the would-be mugger to the police station.

Meanwhile, Mar'i pursued the shadowy figure from the air. She had to hand it to him; he was very good at evading her. If not for her sharpened night vision, she would not be able to track him at all.

Unfortunately, he proved to be even better at evading than she was at tracking and he vanished within the shadows.

She and Raziel converged back at the park.

"Where's the mugger?" she asked.

"With the police, getting his hand taken care of by paramedics," Raziel replied. "Where's the swordsman?"

"He's gone," Mar'i answered. "He evaded me."

"That's interesting," Raziel murmured. "Not that many people can evade you."

"We'd better get back to the Tower," Mar'i said.

* * *

When the two teens returned to Titans Tower, they found someone besides themselves and the other Titans there.

He was tall, perhaps a little over six feet. He was dressed completely in black, a mandarin-collared coat that closed in the torso but was open past his waist and leather pants with thick combat boots and kneepads. His black clothes complemented somewhat tan skin and black hair with two locks resting over his right eye. Storm blue eyes stared out at the Titans.

"What are you doing here?" Mar'i asked.

"Your security is very impressive," the black-clad young man replied. "However, I've planned this for a while."

"Are we going to fight?" Mercury asked.

The young man let out a short laugh. "No. That is not my purpose for coming here."

"Then what is your purpose?" Samara asked, black energy coiled around her hands.

The young man looked at Mar'i.

"You," he spoke, his voice barely higher than a whisper yet carrying a heavy air of . . . something.

"Me?" Mar'i asked, even as Raziel moved closer to her.

"Yes," the young man confirmed. "I've . . . been fascinated with your work for quite a while. I believe I can assist."

"How?" Bladefire asked skeptically.

The young man smirked. "You've been looking for the producers of a certain steroid that can alter a normal human's physiology in such a way that he or she develops powers akin to those possessed by known metahumans. I know how it's made."

"How?" Mar'i asked.

"The steroids are based on the DNA of those metahumans, DNA acquired in the aftermath of particularly brutal battles," the young man explained. "They take blood, tissue samples, hairs, and convert that into a chemical that when injected causes the user's genetic code to resemble that of the metahuman whose DNA was used to create it. The side effects are the same as any steroid, although the aggression factor is even worse in many cases."

"Whose idea was it?" Inferno asked. "To give criminals powers?"

"It was a scientist named Dr. Kaplan," the young man answered. "He used to work for Project Cadmus, until it was disbanded. He moved underground, getting secret funding from people like Luthor's brat."

"Lena," Mar'i muttered. "Figures she'd do something like that. She hates us as much as her father did."

"We know who's making the stuff now, but who's distributing it?" Beast Girl asked.

"Kaplan has distributing centers all over the city," the young man replied. "It could be all over the country, for all I know."

"Then we hit them all," Inferno said. "Simple as that."

"Better idea," the young man interjected. He sat in front of the Titans' mainframe and began typing. Soon, a map of a distribution center appeared on the screen. "This is his main base of operations. Hit that and he'll be crippled."

"How do you know all this?" Raziel asked suspiciously. "And who are you?"

"I have resources," the young man answered. "And my name is Ibn al Xu'ffasch."

Raziel continued to stare at him, feeling that something wasn't quite right with the young man.

"I assume you have a vehicle," Ibn al Xu'ffasch said. "For those of us who aren't blessed with flight or superhuman motion."

"We have something," Mar'i answered, beginning to descend to the Tower's vehicle bay. As she did, she stripped out of the clothes she had been wearing, revealing her Titans uniform underneath and slipping on her purple bracers. The other Titans and Ibn followed her, Samara and Beast Girl slightly irritated at how their male companions had been eyeing Nightstar as she shed her civilian attire for her combat attire.

The eight made it to a sleek black van.

"The front section's for us to ride in," Nightstar explained. "The back section is where we do our ops work."

"A mobile base," Ibn remarked.

"Something like that," Bladefire confirmed.

Nightstar, Ibn, Bladefire, and Cipher got into the front section. Nightstar was at the wheel with Bladefire riding shotgun, and Ibn and Cipher sat behind them. Inferno, Samara, Beast Girl, and Mercury got in the back section, Inferno and Samara taking over navigation.

"Let's go," Nightstar said, driving out of the vehicle bay and through the underwater tunnel that would take them into the city itself.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the distribution center, Dr. Kaplan – a bespectacled man with a trimmed black mustache and slightly thinning hair – was standing before six gangsters. They were none other than the same gangsters that had confronted the Teen Titans weeks ago . . . only to be routed by that damnable Mercury.

And now they were ready for another dose of the power they had had when they confronted the teen heroes.

"Look, Doc, we need that stuff," the leader, the one who had imitated Superman, said, "and we need it NOW. Got me?"

"How much do you have for me?" Kaplan asked.

"How's about this much?" the Static imitator answered, putting down a gym bag full of money.

Kaplan passed six inhalers to the gangsters after examining the money.

"Inhalers?" the Plastic Man imitator asked. "Man, we ain't got asthma!"

"It's a new delivery system," Kaplan replied. "More efficient."

"If you say so," the leader said, picking up one of the inhalers. "This is the one that gives me Superman's powers, right?"

"Yes, of course," Kaplan answered.

Just before the leader could inhale the meta-steroid, the meeting was interrupted by the door exploding and eight teens – well, seven teens and one man in his early twenties – stepping through.

"Nice seeing you losers again," Mercury greeted. He looked at the leader. "Your eyes look better."

"Won't be able to say the same for yours when I'm through," the leader retorted, inhaling the meta-steroid. Once he'd finished, he grinned at Mercury as his eyes glowed scarlet.

Ibn grinned at the Superman imitator. "The one problem with shifting your genetics to resemble a metahuman's is that you inherit the weaknesses, too, not just the powers."

"Oh, what, you got some Kryptonite on you?" the Superman imitator asked arrogantly.

Ibn reached inside his coat and pulled out a small black rod with tubular ends. He pressed a button on the rod and a sword-like line of red light extended from the end that was facing away from him.

"A lightsaber?" the Superman imitator asked. "Who the hell do you think you are, a Jedi?"

"Actually, the red color of the saber would be more akin to a Sith than a Jedi," Mercury corrected.

"Save it for later," Nightstar said. "Titans Together!"

The Titans and Ibn charged into battle against the six gangsters.

Ibn took on the Superman imitator, slicing him with the red-bladed "lightsaber." The Superman imitator cried out in pain, his clothes and the skin underneath shredded.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"This 'lightsaber'?" Ibn answered. "Red solar radiation. Saps a Kryptonian's powers."

"You goddamn son of a –" the Superman imitator roared, firing a blast of heat vision, which Ibn dodged.

"You don't want to know who I'm the son of," the young man answered as he slashed the Superman imitator again. He reached into a lead-lined pocket and slipped a set of brass knuckles onto his hand. The knuckles, when revealed, had Kryptonite gems where each finger would be. Immediately, the Superman imitator began to stagger back.

Ibn charged and punched him in the face, knocking out a tooth or two and leaving the imitator tasting his own blood.

"Jax!" the Static imitator shouted, firing a blast of electricity at Ibn, who was shielded by Nightstar flying in front of him and crossing her bracers. The bracers deflected the lightning and it flew at the Green Lantern imitator, who had to create an emerald shield to block it.

The lightning continued to bounce around. Finally, the room started to get very, very hot.

"Ugh," Samara moaned. "When did it get so hot in here?"

The lightning dissipated.

"My fault," Inferno said. "I figured the increased molecular activity from superheating the room would cancel out the molecular activity from the electricity. After all, electricity is very hot and my heat would absorb the electricity's heat."

"Good thinking," Samara said. "Now . . . do you mind turning it down before I have to take off my cloak?"

"Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing," Inferno mused.

A pair of glowing white eyes staring at the pyrokinetic from beneath the seemingly fathomless darkness of her hood persuaded Inferno to turn down the heat back to more . . . survivable levels.

"That's better," Nightstar said.

Ibn gave no sign of having suffered any discomfort from the heat.

"That's some pretty stoic stuff right there," Mercury commented. "I thought you were Batman for a second."

"Goddamn!" the Ice imitator shouted. "I thought I was gonna melt!"

"That's what you get for copying someone who can manipulate ice and cold," the Fire imitator sneered.

"Screw you," the Ice imitator grumbled.

"That's your mother's job," the Fire imitator mocked.

"Christ," the Plastic Man imitator groaned. "Don't you realize we've got meddling kids to mess up?"

"We're gonna make that punk in black pay for what he did to Jax!" the Green Lantern imitator declared.

Ibn retracted his red solar blade and placed the rod back in his coat. He reached inside and pulled out three pellets.

"Cover your ears," he ordered the Titans.

"Excuse me, but it's Nightstar or Bladefire who gives the orders," Inferno said.

Ibn's only response was to throw the pellets at the Green Lantern imitator, who caught them with a construct of a giant hand. Unfortunately for him, the pellets emitted a hypersonic shriek, nearly shattering his eardrums and disrupting his concentration.

It wasn't just the Green Lantern imitator who was affected. Everyone who was in range was brought to their knees . . . except Ibn, who rather calmly waited for the shriek to stop. Once it stopped, the gangsters were still brain-scrambled from the sonic attack. The Titans quickly moved in to secure them so that they didn't get away once they'd recovered.

Bladefire looked around. "Kaplan escaped."

Ibn looked at Beast Girl. "Track him."

"Are you forgetting who gives the orders?" Nightstar asked sharply.

Ibn grinned. "And what would your orders be?"

Nightstar looked at Beast Girl. "Track him."

"Aye, aye, captain," Beast Girl answered, shifting into her feline hybrid form and sniffing. She began to move on all fours, very much like a cat, as she followed his scent. Nightstar, Ibn, and Bladefire followed, with the rest of the Titans going along.

"There you are," Mercury said, having found Kaplan and now binding his wrists with Flexisteel cords. "Come on, time to go to jail. If you're lucky, some high-up government guy will bust you out and have you work for him on illegal genetic research."

"Mercury," Inferno groaned.

"What?" Mercury asked. "I'm just saying what really goes on."

Ibn chuckled briefly.

* * *

The Titans and Ibn returned to the Tower, where Nightstar whirled upon Ibn.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she asked.

Ibn didn't answer.

"You are not the leader of this team," she went on. "In fact, you are a stranger to us. What the hell gave you the right to start giving orders?"

"I recall warning you to cover your ears," Ibn mentioned. "The blood in your ears is your own fault."

"Hey, how is it that your ears aren't bleeding?" Beast Girl asked.

Ibn turned his head and pointed to his ear canal, revealing a skin-colored device inserted within.

"They protect me from noise higher than a certain number of octaves," he explained.

"Not the point," Bladefire said. "You're not the leader or even a Titan for that matter. Don't give orders again."

"I didn't steer you wrong," Ibn answered before departing the Tower.

"Ibn al Xu'ffasch," Cipher murmured. "That name . . ."

"What about his name?" Inferno asked.

"It means something," Cipher replied. "Something familiar."

"Then get your Arabic-to-English dictionary," Samara droned.

* * *

The next day, Mar'i had finished her assignment and she was just out for a ride . . . on a motorcycle.

Technically, Mar'i didn't need any kind of vehicle; she could fly at speeds up to escape velocity. However, it was a thrill to ride a motorcycle, as it was the closest a flight-incapable person could get to flying.

Her motorcycle was pitch black and emblazoned by purple wings. Mar'i wore black-and-purple motorcycle leathers and her face was concealed by a black motorcycle helmet with a darkly tinted visor.

As she was riding, she took notice of another biker – this one male – riding next to her. He wore a very familiar mandarin coat, only opened this time, and his helmet and bike were much the same as hers, except that the latter did not have a purple wing emblem. The other motorcyclist pulled his visor up briefly, revealing very familiar stormy blue eyes.

"Xu'ffasch," Mar'i muttered. She instantly accelerated, Ibn al Xu'ffasch accelerating after her.

The two weaved through traffic, each trying to outrace the other. Mar'i doubled back and began riding back to Titans Tower, but Ibn remained on her tail. He launched himself over a passing sedan to follow her.

Finally, Mar'i made it to the entrance to the underwater tunnel that would take her into the vehicle bay of Titans Tower. Ibn continued to pursue her, driving through the tunnel into the vehicle bay.

Once Mar'i parked her motorcycle, she got off and removed her helmet, shaking out her wavy red-accented black tresses.

"What are you doing, Xu'ffasch?" she asked.

Ibn removed his helmet, revealing a slight smirk on his darkly handsome features.

"I wanted to test you," he answered.

"For what?" Mar'i asked.

Ibn just gave her a cryptic smile.

"For what it's worth, you're an excellent rider. Gave me quite a challenge catching up to you."

"I'm flattered."

The two went up to Titans Tower, where Cipher gazed at them.

"I'm glad to see you two are getting along better."

"Thank you," Ibn answered. "I'd like to see you in the combat simulation room."

Mar'i and Cipher looked at each other briefly, Mar'i squeezing Cipher's hand before they went to the combat simulation room with Ibn.

"How well do you know this tower?" Mar'i asked.

"Well enough to know that there are a number of points I can infiltrate," Ibn replied. "You might want to be more careful." He looked at Cipher. "Time for us to begin."

Mar'i went to the observation deck of the combat simulation room. Ibn drew his katana while Cipher materialized his psychic blades.

"You want to go first?" Cipher asked.

"First move is yours," Ibn replied.

Cipher lunged at Ibn with inhuman speed, slicing at him with his psychic blades. Ibn dodged and slashed at Cipher with his katana. Cipher jumped backward and propelled three needles at Ibn at high speeds. Ibn ducked and rolled out of the way of the needles and threw three shuriken at Cipher, who caught them with superhuman reflexes and threw them back at even greater speeds. Ibn barely managed to evade the shuriken, which embedded themselves in the wall.

Ibn charged Cipher and slashed at him. Cipher moved out of the way of his slashes and swung down with his psychic blade, cutting Ibn's katana in half.

Ibn discarded the broken katana and began fighting Cipher with his fists and feet. Cipher blocked as many as he could, but Ibn was more skilled than the combat psychic had given him credit for and was giving him all that he could handle. Cipher swung his leg out in a swift and fierce high kick, but Ibn caught his ankle and used it as a fulcrum to swing into a kick to Cipher's head.

Mar'i watched the two young men battle, observing Ibn's fighting style very closely. He was definitely a master of the martial arts and his style was actually a hybrid style, taking elements from various unarmed combat techniques, like how many members of her father's side of the "family" had been taught to fight.

Back in the combat simulation room, Ibn and Cipher continued to fight. Cipher threw a swift punch that would have done real damage if Ibn hadn't moved out of the way at the very last second. He rewarded Cipher for his miscalculation by grabbing his wrist and spinning him into a facedown slam. Ibn straddled his back and twisted his arm behind his back.

"Good," he whispered. "You had a very skilled teacher. But you're not perfect. Not nearly as perfect as you seem to think."

Cipher swung his leg back in an attempt to kick Ibn from behind, but the other fighter seemed to have predicted this, as he grabbed his ankle and successfully twisted him into a veritable pretzel.

Ibn leaned down and whispered, "Is this the best you have? I thought Mar'i would have chosen someone who wouldn't be overcome so easily."

Cipher glared and charged Ibn's body with enough kinetic force to throw him off him.

"Interesting," Ibn spoke, rising to his feet. "But I already have what I wanted."

* * *

Later on, Mar'i and Ibn were having dinner together at a downtown restaurant. Cipher had objected to it, but Mar'i had assured him that she was more than capable of taking care of herself if the mysterious young man tried anything. Of course, the source of Cipher's objection came from the dress Mar'i had chosen, a low-cut, virtually backless dress with slits very high up each leg.

Ibn wore his mandarin coat closed, as he usually tended to do, and other than that he hadn't changed his outfit in the least.

"Why are you so interested in me?" Mar'i asked.

Ibn just looked at her. "You are a flower among weeds, Mar'i. That is why."

"What do you mean, 'a flower among weeds'?" Mar'i asked.

"He is unworthy of you," Ibn stated.

"Who is?" Mar'i asked, dreading the answer.

"The one you call Cipher," Ibn answered. "He is a talented fighter, but arrogance and self-doubt coexist in him and it clouds his thoughts. He does not have clarity of purpose . . . not the way you and I do."

"What do you mean?" Mar'i asked, becoming quite offended.

"The first time I saw you was two years ago, when you and your brother still battled in Blüdhaven," Ibn explained. "I saw a streak of purple light and I followed it, out of curiosity. I found you, my flower among the weeds, and I was so astonished to see such beauty in such a desolate place." He gazed into her eyes. "I have much to do in Gotham City; this was just a detour . . . but an important detour. Come with me."

"I can't," Mar'i said.

"Why not?" Ibn asked.

"I have responsibilities to the Titans," Mar'i replied. "I can't just abandon them . . . and Cipher's my boyfriend. I won't abandon him, either, no matter what you say."

"He cannot return your love," Ibn said. "Not the way I can."

"I'm flattered, _but the answer is still no,_" Mar'i responded firmly.

Ibn relented. "If that is the way you want it. I will be gone by tomorrow morning."

* * *

Meanwhile, Cipher was at the Titans Tower mainframe, searching for information on Ibn al Xu'ffasch.

"What, you think you're going to find something on him from Interpol?" Samara asked.

"I don't trust him," Cipher replied.

"Is somebody just jealous?" Samara asked.

"It's not that, though I'll admit it plays a part," Cipher answered. "I don't like the way he looks at her."

"Like someone who actually desires her?" Samara questioned. "Like somebody who isn't afraid to get close to her?"

Cipher never took his eyes off the screen. "The name means something . . . I'm trying to translate it."

"I can tell you what it means right now," Samara said.

"What?"

"Son of the Bat."

"Son of the Bat? Who would name their kid that . . . unless . . ."

"Bruce Wayne was quite the playboy, and he certainly had a number of women who were interested in him as Batman."

Before they could speak further, they were interrupted by Mar'i's arrival.

"How was the date?" Cipher asked.

"It wasn't a date," Mar'i replied. "And even if it was, I doubt he'll come back for another one. I doubt he'll come back at all."

"You drove him off," Samara deduced. "He asked something of you that you couldn't give."

"Yes," Mar'i confirmed. "He said he had something to do in Gotham and I have a bad feeling about it."

"I've seen his fighting style before," Cipher said. "That was League of Shadows combat technique he used on me."

"And his name is Arabic for 'Son of the Bat,'" Samara said.

"Son of the Bat?" Mar'i echoed. She thought about it for a while. "Son of the Bat . . . but who would give him such a title . . . he's obviously Grandpa Bruce's son just from the name, either literally or metaphorically, but who would the mother . . ." She gasped. "It's starting to come together now. The fighting skills, the level of knowledge and preparation for his opponents, the way he knew our Tower . . . why the hell didn't I see it sooner?"

She flew from Titans Tower like a purple-black bullet.

* * *

In Gotham City, Tim Drake, garbed as the Dark Knight from whom he'd inherited the mantle, stood on a rooftop in Crime Alley . . . where Batman had been born.

Beside him stood Dick Grayson, garbed as Nightwing once again.

"You got the message, too?" Batman asked.

"Yeah," Nightwing replied, "but where did it come from?"

"It came on Oracle's network," Batman said. "That much we know. What we don't know is who the hell was able to get into it and send us a message through it."

"It could be Carrie playing a prank," Nightwing suggested.

Batman just shook his head.

"It was me," a dark, raspy growl of a voice answered.

Batman and Nightwing turned to see the meager light distort itself in front of them and a figure shimmer into view.

The figure was definitely male, lean and muscular. Metallic black covered his body, with sharp twin scallops extending from each forearm. A hollow black bat outlined in blood red was emblazoned on his chest. A metallic black mask covered his face, pointy-eared and crimson-eyed.

"Who are you?" Nightwing asked.

"The true heir to the Dark Knight," the faux Batman answered, "and I'm going to prove it."

He flicked his wrists and modified Batarangs, black with red edges and looking more like shuriken than the usual Batarangs, popped out. He threw both Batarangs at Batman and Nightwing, who dodged.

The faux Batman was not deterred by this, unsheathing twin blades from his forearms that crackled with electricity. He charged Nightwing first and slashed with both blades. Nightwing barely managed to get out of the way in time and even then he wasn't unscathed; one of the blades had managed to cut through the outer layer of his costume. The original Robin knew that it was just luck; if he hadn't been able to get out of the way in time, the faux Batman would have cut through his suit entirely and reached the more vulnerable skin.

The faux Batman swept his leg out to trip Nightwing, but the veteran hero jumped over the leg and swung his leg out in a fierce kick. The faux Batman seemed to not have been seriously hurt by the kick and spun around to slash Batman, who had been moving to assist Nightwing.

Nightwing withdrew a disk from his belt and threw it at the faux Batman, who let it hit him. The disk released compressed Freon, trapping him in a block of ice.

To the surprise of both crime-fighters, the block of ice imprisoning the faux Batman started vibrating.

"Oh, sh –" Batman began to say, before the ice shattered.

"Internal heating system," the faux Batman stated before releasing his electro-blades and redoubling his attack on Batman and Nightwing, who fought back just as fiercely. Both drew Bo staffs and extended them to their full lengths, using them as striking instruments. The faux Batman simply crossed his blades to block their attacks and proceeded to kick them both.

"This guy's tough," Nightwing remarked.

"We're tougher," Batman hissed, throwing flash-bang grenades at his impostor. The grenades exploded in the faux Batman's face, which should have disoriented him. Indeed, it did . . . it just wasn't for as long as it should have.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the cave beneath Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne was watching the fight on his computer monitor through the feed from the sky-cams he had set up all over Gotham City to monitor criminal activity and his successor's efforts to curb it.

"That's League of Shadows combat technique," he murmured.

"Right you are, Detective," a familiar and unexpected voice confirmed.

Bruce whirled in his seat to confront a man with handsome Arabic features and green eyes that glittered with intellect and deadliness. A familiar green cloak covered his shoulders.

"Ra's al Ghul," he said. "You're supposed to be dead."

"I faked it," Ra's al Ghul stated. "Detective, you should have known better than to assume my life would be so easily ended."

"Who's the Shadow?" Bruce asked harshly, pointing to the faux Batman on the screen.

"Your son," Ra's answered simply.

"Talia miscarried," Bruce stated.

"She didn't," Ra's corrected. "She pretended to in order to protect the child from us both, fearing that he would become a pawn in our struggle, each one of us trying to impose our morals on him. She thought she could hide him from me, give him to a couple in America. Do you know what his name was, before I found him?"

Bruce didn't answer.

"Terrence. Terrence McGinnis."

"What did you do to his parents?" the original Batman asked, dreading the answer.

"Eliminated them," Ra's answered. "Then I spent the next fifteen years molding the boy into Ibn al Xu'ffasch, the true Son of the Bat. He will be the Batman you should have been, but that can only be once your false sons are out of the way."

"What about Jason?" Bruce asked.

"Jason?" Ra's echoed. "He'll have a place with us. He will guide Ibn, much like you guided Richard and Timothy."

"You mean you'll make him a murderer like you," Bruce growled.

"It's called justice," Ra's answered. "Real justice, which must be delivered without mercy, pity, or compassion. I told you before, Bruce, the corruption we struggle against is unrelenting and we must be unrelenting as well."

"And I told you that things like mercy and compassion are what prevent those who truly care about justice from being vigilantes," Bruce retorted.

Ra's looked at the screen. "I see that young Ibn is handling himself quite well against Grayson and Drake."

"He won't win," Bruce stated.

"Can you be so certain of that, Detective?" Ra's asked before departing from the cave.

Bruce growled and pressed a button on the keyboard of the computer, opening a chamber in the cave to reveal an armored Batsuit, black and metallic gray.

* * *

Back in Crime Alley, Batman and Nightwing continued to battle the faux Batman, also known as Ibn al Xu'ffasch, formerly known as Terrence McGinnis.

"I know why he called us here," Nightwing whispered to Batman.

"This place was where the original Batman was born," Batman whispered back. "It's symbolic. By besting us here, of all places, it'll be a baptism of fire for this guy, whoever he is."

"Ibn!" a young female voice sharply cried out.

The three combatants stopped and looked up, seeing Mar'i Grayson, still in the dress she had worn to her dinner with Ibn, hovering above them.

"Stop this," Mar'i spoke.

"It is necessary," Ibn answered. "The pretenders must be removed. Only then will I be ready."

"Mar'i . . ." Nightwing uttered.

"Ready?" Mar'i asked, holding up a hand to tell her father that she was all right. "For what? To clear the way for Ra's al Ghul's 'purifying' this city? Is that what you want? To help destroy something your father worked so hard to preserve? Would that make your father proud?"

"My father . . ." Ibn snarled.

"Yes, your father," Mar'i answered, descending until her feet touched the rooftop. She walked to him, speaking as she did. "He loves this city with every fiber of his being. He would die to protect it, because there are still good people here, people who would fight to create a better Gotham." She smiled sadly. "But it's not about destroying the city with you, is it? You want to prove yourself to Bruce, to show him that you're a worthy son." She reached out to him and gently touched his mask-covered cheek. "If you want to prove yourself to him, prove it by helping him, helping Uncle Tim, and helping my father preserve this city."

She removed his mask, revealing blue eyes that were electric with realization, regret, and turmoil.

"It's ok, Ibn," Mar'i whispered. "We can go to him."

"Mar'i," Nightwing repeated.

Mar'i looked at her father and said, "It's ok."

Ibn donned his mask and leaped out into the sky, extending bat-like glider wings from under his arms. Mar'i flew after him.

* * *

"What do you want?" Bruce asked.

"A chance," Ibn replied.

"Why?" Bruce asked. "And don't say it's because you're my son. Biology or not, we're strangers." His expression and tone softened. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to know you. If I had known you were alive . . ."

"You would have made sure Ra's al Ghul never got to me," Ibn finished. "What's done is done, Father. I have only one thing to ask of you."

"What's that?" Bruce asked.

"My name," Ibn answered. "I was only five when he took me. I don't even remember what my name was before he found me."

"Terrence," Bruce stated. "It was Terrence McGinnis."

"Terrence," Ibn murmured. "Not a bad name."

"My advice to you: Find out who you are," Bruce said. "A name can't tell you that. Ra's al Ghul gave you your identity as my son. I told you who you were before he found you. You have to find out yourself who you'll be."

Nothing was said for what felt like forever. Finally, Ibn spoke.

"Thank you."

* * *

The next morning, Ibn was in the airport, waiting for his flight. He had gone back to his usual mandarin coat and leather pants. Beside him stood Mar'i, dressed in a black zip-front top and a purple skirt over black shorts.

"Feeling nervous?" Mar'i asked.

"No," Ibn replied.

"Liar," Mar'i said. "I've seen your father and brothers look exactly like that when they're nervous. It's in the way you set your jaw, like you're on the verge of grinding your teeth."

"I suppose you're right," Ibn conceded. "I am nervous. I'm a free man. Able to go where I want and do as I will. It scares me somewhat."

"You'll be ok," Mar'i said.

Just then, they heard a voice over the loudspeaker saying, _"Flight 635, leaving in ten minutes. Flight 635, leaving in ten minutes."_

"It's time I was on my way," Ibn said. He turned to Mar'i. "I'll see you again."

"I know," Mar'i responded. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed Ibn on the cheek. "Good luck."

"Thank you," Ibn whispered before leaving for his flight.

* * *

End Notes: Well, that's that. As seems to be the trend with me these days, the chapters for this are getting longer and longer. Fortunately, you're still sticking with me, although I get the feeling I might have lost some of you, and for that I'm grateful.

Well, some explanations are in order.

Ra's al Ghul, in the Batman comics and 90s animated series, was an environmental terrorist. His idea of saving the world was to purge it of humanity, whom he saw as a corrupting influence. In Batman Begins, he was the leader of a secret cabal whose goal was to save humanity from itself by purging it of corruption. The methodology behind that was often to single out civilizations where corruption flourished and destroy them, often ending a lot of innocent lives as well, but then there was the whole "greater good" thing going. Personally, I liked the Begins methodology of Ra's al Ghul better than the original comics' methodology, so I made Ra's in Future Storm continuity more like his movie self although I preserved his Arabic background.

Jason is Jason Todd, the second Robin who died and later came back to life in the pages of last year's Batman comics. In Future Storm continuity, Jason merely ran away after being fired from his role as Robin for being too violent and fell in with Ra's al Ghul, whose methods were more in line with Jason's beliefs.

Dick and Tim you ought to already know by now, the former simply for being the Robin depicted in the show and the latter if you read Batman comics regularly or keep up with them online.

Everybody knows who Bruce Wayne is, so I'm not going to elaborate on him.

Lena Luthor is not an OC; Lex Luthor actually had a child in the Superman comics of the late 90s, but nobody's heard from her since.

Ibn al Xu'ffasch in this story is a combination of Ibn al Xu'ffasch from the Kingdom Come timeline and Terry McGinnis from Batman Beyond. Since in both continuities they're biological sons of Bruce Wayne through unusual circumstances and it's technically too early for Batman Beyond, I decided to just combine them.

His origins lie in the Batman graphic novel "Son of the Demon," which basically had Batman ally with Ra's al Ghul, marry his daughter Talia, sire a child with her, and later lose that child, although the loss was a deception engineered by Talia due to her not wanting Batman to constantly spend his time protecting her. When the child was born, she sent him to an unnamed American couple, the only clue to his origin being a necklace she wore.

Ibn's relationship with Nightstar comes from the continuity established in Kingdom Come. They were lovers there, and had I known that at the time I was coming up with this little epic, I might very well have never created Raziel/Cipher, since his presence would not have been needed. However, what's done is done and Mar'i is absolutely loyal, so I had no choice but to make a little love triangle. There's no doubt that she feels something for him, but Raziel is her boyfriend and to reiterate, Mar'i is absolutely loyal.

Flight 635 is named after the Batman issue in which Jason Todd reemerged as the brutal vigilante Red Hood, who is not to be confused with Lian Harper's alias in this continuity.

P.S. A romantic/sexual relationship between Nightstar and Ibn al Xu'ffasch would not technically be incest since Dick Grayson is not biologically related to Bruce Wayne.

That's enough out of me. Feel free to tell me what you thought of this.


	26. Side Story 10: Mind Freak

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 10: "Mind Freak"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, either; the former is owned by DC Comics and the latter is owned jointly by DC and Marvel. The Brain Trust is a creation of Batman Beyond that I've retooled for use in this story. Everyone and everything else is mine.

Author's note: This standalone was born of discussions I've had with DBAinsw regarding Raziel Crestmore, a.k.a. Cipher. The conclusion we came to was that Cipher was extremely flawed yet made out to be perfect. The truth was that I never intended to create a "perfect" character – that goes into Mary Sue/Gary Stu territory – and now I have a chance to resolve Cipher's issues as a character and move him in a new direction. I'm taking it.

* * *

Cipher sliced a training droid in half with his psychic blade, flipping backward and shooting an aura-charged marble at another droid, putting a large hole in its head. He grabbed a third droid and used his aura to blast its arms off before kicking it in the head.

Moving like a blur, he cut through the rest of the training droids, stopping only when they were in pieces. He panted heavily.

"It's not enough," he muttered. "I have to get stronger."

The words of Ibn al Xu'ffasch, the previously unknown son of Bruce Wayne, haunted the silver-haired combat psychic.

"_I thought Mar'i would have chosen someone who wouldn't be overcome so easily."_

Cipher snarled and kicked the head of a droid, walking away from the training ground. As he walked, he passed by Nightstar.

"Raziel?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, Mar'i," Cipher replied. "Don't worry about me."

"I can't help worrying," Nightstar said. "And I have been worried about you lately. Since Ibn . . . you've been distant. More so than usual."

"I said it's nothing," Cipher insisted, walking away from her. "If you'll excuse me, I'm late for an appointment."

Cipher changed out of his Titans uniform and into a black jacket over a dark green shirt and dark blue jeans. He picked up the keys to his motorcycle and left the Tower.

* * *

"I'm glad you could make it, Raziel," a middle-aged brunette dressed in drab clothes greeted him.

"It's all right, Mrs. Coeur," Cipher answered. "Where's Amelia?"

"Studying in her room," Mrs. Coeur replied.

"Sure," Cipher said before climbing up the stairs to Amelia's room. He gently rapped on the door.

"Who is it?" a young female voice asked.

"It's Raziel," Cipher called out through the door.

Moments later, the door opened, revealing a slip of a girl, blonde hair framing a delicate-featured face and loose clothes hiding her figure.

"Hi, Amelia," Cipher greeted.

"You're my new tutor?" Amelia asked.

"Yeah," Cipher replied.

"All my tutors keep leaving," Amelia said.

"Why's that?" Cipher asked.

"Every time they show up, I suddenly . . . know things," Amelia replied. "I know them . . . as well as my tutors do, so they don't think I really need to be tutored anymore. I just need motivation."

"Well, let's give it a go for today," Cipher said. He picked up Amelia's textbook and read the page to which it was opened. "Ok. If _x_ plus 7 equals 12, what is _x?_"

"Five," Amelia answered.

"If 5 times _x_ equals 40, what is _x?_" Cipher asked.

"8," Amelia replied.

"You're pretty good at this," Cipher remarked. "Just one question . . . can you remember what you learn when your tutors show up?"

"No," Amelia replied. "I can never remember. After they leave, I forget what they were talking about. I can remember when I'm in class, but when I'm out of class, I forget again."

Cipher pondered what Amelia had just told him for a moment. He heard the faint sounds of Mrs. Coeur talking to someone. A chill ran down his spine.

"I'm going to go check something out," he said. "I'll be right back."

He went down the stairs, moving as quietly as a mouse. He could hear their conversation more clearly now.

"You're saying my daughter is . . . special?" Mrs. Coeur asked.

"Yes," a male voice answered. "Amelia has a gift. One we wish to see nurtured to the peak of her potential."

"I'm not so sure of this," Mrs. Coeur said.

"Not to worry," the male continued. "We have the finest facilities any parent of a child such as yours could ask for. Would you like to see them?"

"Yes, yes, I would," Mrs. Coeur replied, more firmly this time.

"Then you'll see them," the male answered. "Tonight."

By this point, Cipher was able to see what was going on. The male Mrs. Coeur was talking to had short blond hair, wore a three-piece suit, and was quite muscular underneath said suit.

"Brick," he muttered.

Brick looked up and locked eyes with Cipher, cold blue meeting hard violet. A chilling smirk lit his features.

"What are you grinning at?" Mrs. Coeur asked.

Brick merely continued looking up, causing Mrs. Coeur to turn around and look, seeing Cipher.

"Raziel," she greeted. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, it's ok, Mrs. Coeur," Brick replied. "Mr. Crestmore is an old acquaintance of mine. We go back quite a ways. In fact, he used to be a student at the school I represent."

Cipher could do no more than stare in stunned silence.

"I'd better get back to Amelia," he said once he recovered his voice. "Sorry I interrupted."

He nearly ran up the stairs back to Amelia's room.

_Brick!_ he thought angrily and with a tinge of fear. The combat psychic had nothing but bad memories associated with the man, who was a constant regenerator. He couldn't be stopped, only slowed down and even that was more or less futile. _And now they're after Amelia._

No, that wouldn't happen. He wouldn't let anyone else be subjected to the nightmare that he'd had to endure.

He knocked on Amelia's door.

"Raziel, is that you?" Amelia asked.

"Yeah," Cipher replied. "Mind if I come back in?"

"No, not really," Amelia answered.

Cipher opened the door and entered Amelia's room.

"You seem worried about something," she remarked.

"Can't talk about it right now," Cipher said. "But I think I know why you can only remember what you're being taught when you're in the presence of tutors."

"Why?" Amelia asked.

"On your own, you have only your own knowledge to work with," Cipher explained. "However, when you're around others, you can imprint their minds onto yours, allowing you to replicate their knowledge and skills. Of course, it only works when they're near you; if they leave, you're left with your own knowledge and skills again."

"That sounds kinda cool," Amelia said. "So . . . if I were around a super-genius, I'd be a super-genius, too?"

"As long as that super-genius was near you, yes," Cipher reiterated. "Why don't we continue?"

After he was finished tutoring Amelia, he went downstairs, about to leave when Mrs. Coeur saw him.

"Raziel?" she asked. "What's the matter?"

"Be careful when you go to that school tonight," he replied. "Have a good day." He left without another word.

* * *

That night, Cipher made his way to the Brain Trust's cover academy in a personal flyer, said personal flyer in stealth mode to prevent it from being detected. He landed the flyer on the academy's rooftop and exited, sneaking into the building through the ventilation system. Motion sensors registered him, electrifying the walls as a security measure.

Fortunately, Cipher had thought to wear an insulated suit, so the electricity was a minor annoyance. He kept moving, but placed a breathing mask over his nose and mouth just in case they began pumping knockout or lethal gas through the vents.

He finally found his way to an exit. If he knew the Brain Trust the way he thought he did, they'd be showing Amelia and her mother the school area. They'd keep the two far away from the underground area, where the truth of the organization could be found.

He pushed the vent grille off its hinges, only to dive into a hail of laser fire. He moved like a demon, dodging the blasts of the Brain Trust's guards. While their armor would block his psychic attacks, it wouldn't exactly block his physical attacks. Unfortunately, since his strength was psychically derived, the armor would take the "oomph" out of his blows, leaving him no better off than a physically normal human with highly advanced combat skills.

Then again, that described the vast majority of his girlfriend's father's side of the "family" and they did just fine. He'd just have to get sneaky.

He pulled out a pellet and threw it down on the ground, said pellet releasing obscuring smoke upon landing.

"What is he trying to do, hide from us?" one of the guards asked.

"Doesn't matter," another replied. "Turn on the infrared scopes. You'll see him."

"Actually, sir, we can't see him," a third guard said.

"Why not?" the squad leader asked.

"Because the smoke is giving off heat, too," the third guard replied. "Enough for him to blend in with us."

"Then adjust the scope to look for human body temperature!" the squad leader yelled.

By the time that order was given out, several of the guards had already been taken out, leaving those three.

"I still can't see him!" the first guard exclaimed.

"Why not?" the squad leader growled.

"Because there's nothing in this goddamned smoke cloud that's even remotely at human temperature except us!" the first guard yelled.

"And the others have already gone down!" the third guard added.

"The little screw is taking us all out while we can't see him," the squad leader grumbled. "Adjust further!"

The first guard never got the chance to adjust his scopes, as he was swiftly disabled by Cipher, leaving the squad leader and the third guard all on their lonesome. Cipher simply walked up to them and said one word.

"Boo."

Both guards immediately lost their composure, firing at him like a panicked arcade visitor pulling the trigger on the pretend gun to kill the aliens on the screen before he lost his last life. Cipher simply dodged each and every blast, having the advantage of superior speed and contact lenses specifically designed to operate in vision-obscuring conditions.

By the time the smoke cleared, he was gone and a squad of Brain Trust guards was unconscious.

Cipher had escaped back into the vents and was now making his way to find Amelia and Mrs. Coeur. He did find Brick walking out of a classroom. He exited the vent, leaping out to attack Brick, who simply caught him by the wrists and threw him into a wall.

"Mr. Crestmore," Brick greeted with a falsely jovial smile. "Fancy seeing you here again."

Cipher snarled underneath his breathing mask. "I'm not letting you turn her into another one of Azazel's killers."

"I suppose she should turn out like you, a killer all on your own," Brick remarked.

That single statement caused Cipher to lunge at Brick, ready to slice him apart with his psychic blades. Of course, Brick slipped inside his guard and kidney-punched him with enough force to make the combat psychic cough up blood. Cipher had enough presence of mind to grab him by the wrist and try to slice his hand off. The operative word was "try," since Brick's constant regeneration caused new cells to grow as soon as he started slicing. Brick just grabbed him and threw him again, sending him into – and through – the opposite wall.

Cipher picked up as much debris as he could and charged it with his aura, flinging all the pieces at Brick, who simply batted them aside. Cipher charged Brick again, striking blows that would be lethal for most people but which hardly affected Brick, who grabbed Cipher by his wrist and snapped it.

"Leave," Brick said. "I wouldn't like to have to spill your blood while I have guests."

Cipher snarled and charged past him, headed for the door the constant regenerator had walked through. He had sensed two other souls in there, both quite frightened. Of course, Brick had to try to clothesline him, but Cipher had seen the move and evaded. Unfortunately, evading had allowed Brick to block Cipher from the door.

"Leave," he repeated.

"Fine," Cipher spat. "But this isn't over. You come near Amelia again and I'll make sure you live to suffer for it."

Brick smiled. "Nice threat, but not one I haven't heard."

Cipher left the same way he'd come, through the ventilation system. He wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but he could hear Brick laughing at him as he fled.

* * *

The combat psychic found himself in Father Matthew's church, slumped in the confession booth.

"Raziel?" Father Matthew asked.

"It's begun again," Cipher replied with grim sadness in his tone.

"What has?" Father Matthew asked.

"The Brain Trust is targeting a girl named Amelia," Cipher explained. "She's not even in high school yet . . ." He sighed bitterly. "She's hardly older than my sister would be if she were still alive."

"You want to expiate your sins, don't you?" Father Matthew concluded. "It's not just about protecting the girl; it's about absolving your guilt over your family's deaths and what happened to Ariana."

"I don't want her turning out like me or Ariana," Cipher said.

"There's something else troubling you, isn't there?" Father Matthew deduced.

"I'm tainted," Cipher replied. "Cursed. Poison."

"What makes you say that?" Father Matthew asked.

"My hands are stained red," Cipher continued. "With the blood of those I've killed and the blood of those who've died because of me. I can't add Mar'i to that list."

"Is that why you are so distant from her?" Father Matthew asked. "If so, you are being . . . a damned idiot. Damned because you'll be condemning yourself to a lifetime of misery if you continue to pull away from her."

"I'm not worthy of her," Cipher said. "I'll only hurt her in the end, so I'd rather just walk away before she gets too attached to me."

"You idiot," Father Matthew sighed. "You'll hurt her worse if you leave, if you let your guilt and self-loathing gain so much power over you that you spurn the one person you've said is your light."

"Maybe you're right," Cipher whispered. "Maybe you're wrong. The fact remains that I'm no good for her." He crossed himself as Father Matthew prayed for his soul and departed.

* * *

Cipher returned to Titans Tower holding his injured wrist behind his back. It was already healing and would be back to normal by the next day.

"And what have you been getting up to?" Samara asked, haunting the corridor.

"Nothing you need to worry about," Cipher answered.

Samara simply grabbed him by his injured wrist, eliciting a slight wince from him, and pulled him to her. "You idiot. You've been going out getting yourself banged up again." Not giving him the chance to protest, she dragged him into her room and used her healing powers to finish the mending process.

"Thanks," Cipher said.

"You're welcome," Samara answered acidly. "Now what the hell did you do to get your wrist like that?"

Cipher confessed what had happened.

"And you didn't think to inform the rest of us?" Samara asked. "No, because the great Raziel Crestmore can handle everything himself, can't he?"

Cipher smiled ironically. "Perhaps I'm not that great, then."

"No, I think you've known you're not that great for a while," Samara mused. "That's where that unspoken arrogance comes in. It's an act – one I've seen through for some time."

Cipher paced the room.

"You're seeking clarity," Samara said. "You want to be free of your doubts, free of your self-hatred, and free of your guilt. There is a way of doing that. A vision quest."

"Vision quest?" Cipher asked.

"I bury you within your own psyche, forcing you to confront yourself and your memories and make peace with them," Samara replied.

"Let's do it, then," Cipher said.

"Are you sure?" Samara asked. "A vision quest isn't something you go on lightly. It will force you to face yourself as you truly are."

"I'm ready for it," Cipher insisted.

"No one is ever ready," Samara responded. "Not really, but if you insist . . . lie down."

Cipher lay down on Samara's bed and removed his breathing mask. Samara placed a hand on his forehead and chanted something in the Azarathian tongue.

Then her eyes glowed blue-white and Cipher was plunged into the recesses of his mind.

* * *

He stood in what seemed like an endless corridor, with doors on either side. He walked to the first door on his left and opened it. A bright light shined forth from the door . . . and faded to reveal the house he had lived in with his family prior to their deaths.

"Home?" he murmured.

"Hi, big brother!" a cheery, painfully familiar voice greeted him.

Cipher turned around and saw Aimee, looking exactly the same as she had when she was alive.

"Aimee?" Cipher wondered.

Aimee hugged him tightly, despite the fact that she only came up to his waist.

"Not really," she answered. "I'm just here to represent your innocence."

"My innocence?" Cipher asked.

"When you were happy," Aimee replied. "When you didn't know how evil and cruel human beings could be." She smiled up at him. "I don't blame you for what happened to me and Mommy and Daddy. Those people lied to all of us, made us believe they wanted to help you."

"I still . . . feel so guilty," Cipher murmured.

Aimee kicked him in the shin. "Quit being silly! It's not your fault, so stop saying it is!"

The kick, along with Aimee's words, threw Cipher for a loop.

"Now you gotta go," Aimee said. "There's somebody else who wants to see you. Just remember what I said, ok, Raziel?"

"Sure," Cipher answered.

* * *

There was another flash of bright light and Cipher found himself standing in front of another door. He opened it and stepped through, finding himself in a very detailed facsimile of the Brain Trust's cover academy. He was inside the combat training arena, watching his past self spar with Ariana.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?" a bittersweet, familiar voice remarked.

Cipher turned and saw Ariana, looking exactly as she had before she died – flowing red hair and a skimpy leather outfit.

"Ariana?" he wondered. "What are you supposed to represent?"

"I'm a memory from a better time in your life," Ariana replied. "A time when you were growing more confident in your abilities and you felt as though you had someone who could understand you."

"I'm . . . sorry," Cipher said.

"For what?" Ariana asked.

"I left you," Cipher replied. "If I hadn't left you in that place, you might not have ended up where you did."

"You're a silly boy, you know that?" Ariana remarked. "Easy on the eyes, but silly." She gripped the back of Cipher's head firmly, forcing him to look at her. "It's not your fault. Wyndragyn killed me, not you."

"Not for lack of trying," Cipher whispered. "Uriel may have been the persona that tried to kill you, but I wanted you out of my life, out of my memory. I . . . I'm . . ."

"If you say you're sorry again, I'm going to hurt you," Ariana said. "It's not your fault. Got me? Not. Your. Fault. Say it with me."

Chastised, Cipher spoke with Ariana, "Not my fault."

"Feel better?" Ariana asked.

"Yeah," Cipher admitted.

"Good," Ariana said. "Now you have one more person to see."

"Who?" Cipher asked.

"You'll know when you see him," Ariana replied, before kissing him. Cipher momentarily closed his eyes . . .

* * *

. . . and reopened them to see that she was gone and he was outside a horribly familiar mansion.

"Here?" he muttered.

"Yeah, Kokuryu no Kiba, here," a voice he thought he'd never hear again answered.

Cipher turned and saw Wyndragyn.

"And what do you represent?" he asked.

"Guilt," the masked assassin replied. "Your guilt. Face it, Crestmore, you'll never wash that blood off your hands. You know why you couldn't stop me? You're weak. You've always been weak, so weak you couldn't even live in your own head by yourself."

Cipher glared and sheathed his index and middle fingers in sharpened mental energy.

"Sure, because that worked so well last time," Wyndragyn sneered, "but if you insist . . ."

He drew his katana and slashed at Cipher, who tried to slice through it but could only nick it.

"What?" Cipher wondered.

"This is your mind, stupid," Wyndragyn taunted. "In the physical world, you may be able to cut through anything with those blades, but I'm not a construct of flesh and bone and blood. I'm a construct of your subconscious mind and it's going to take a lot more than what you're willing to give now to overcome me."

Cipher simply slashed at Wyndragyn again, the masked assassin this time catching his wrist and twisting. Cipher simply swung his leg to kick Wyndragyn, but that was also caught. Cipher threw a punch with his free hand, but Wyndragyn bent backwards to evade it and swung his legs up to kick Cipher as the combat psychic lost his balance. He flipped back onto his feet as Cipher fell.

"You can do better than this," Wyndragyn challenged. "Quit being such a little bitch."

Cipher got back on his feet and charged Wyndragyn, fighting him with inhuman speed and nigh-demonic ferocity, slicing him repeatedly with his psychic blades. The blades cut through Wyndragyn's costume but not his flesh.

"You're getting better," Wyndragyn said. "You've started overcoming your guilt over your family's and Ariana's deaths." His fist shot forth and struck Cipher in the jaw, nearly breaking it. "But if you're to beat me, you'll have to do better."

The two continued to do battle, slashing, punching, kicking, chopping, elbowing, and so forth. Cipher and Wyndragyn managed to land about the same amount of blows on each other, but Wyndragyn didn't seem to be affected by any of Cipher's blows.

"Don't you get it?" Wyndragyn asked. "You'll have to do better if you're to defeat me."

"Better?" Cipher asked. "We're evenly matched. How am I to defeat you?"

Wyndragyn just caught his fist and laughed before socking Cipher. "Who said anything about fighting me?"

Cipher pondered that.

_How am I supposed to defeat him if I can't fight him?_ he wondered.

"_You're weak. You've always been weak, so weak you couldn't even live in your own head by yourself."_

The scary thing was that Wyndragyn had been right. He couldn't stomach killing, so he invented other selves to do it for him. He couldn't stomach sleeping with another person just to achieve an objective, so his subconscious formed yet another self to do it for him. He didn't want to feel, so he forged another self to do his feeling for him.

Weakness. A fatal flaw in his character.

"You're right . . ." Cipher said. "I was weak." He looked up at Wyndragyn, wiping the blood off his lip. "But not anymore."

The spectral forms of his other selves – Memnoch with the murderous gleam in his eyes, Uriel with his cold expression, Michael with his smile of challenge, Gabriel with his scholarly glasses, Samael with his charming exterior, and Gabrielle in all her femininity – emerged. The other selves shattered into luminous shards, shards that flowed into Cipher and shaped themselves into a psychic rapier.

"I did a lot of things I regret," Cipher said. "If I hadn't been so weak, so encumbered by self-doubt, I could have stopped you . . . but I refuse to spend the rest of my life living in guilt." With those last three words, he sliced Wyndragyn with the psychic rapier, cutting through the suit and the flesh and blood underneath.

Wyndragyn removed his mask and smiled at Cipher.

"Good for you."

Wyndragyn vanished and Cipher found himself back in the real world.

* * *

"How was it?" Samara asked.

"To borrow a cliché, I feel like a new man," Cipher replied. "How long have I been under?"

"All night," Samara answered. "It's morning now."

Cipher rose from the bed and picked up his breathing mask. "Thank you, Samara." He departed from the room.

"You're welcome," Samara whispered.

Cipher returned to his room and stripped out of the insulated suit he'd been wearing. After a brief shower, he dressed himself and went down to join the other Titans for breakfast.

* * *

"What were you and Samara doing all night?" Mercury asked.

"Therapy," Cipher replied.

"And what kind of therapy was it?" Beast Girl asked.

"I hope you don't think what I think you think," Cipher answered.

"Oh, I'm not the one you should be worried about," Beast Girl said, jerking a thumb toward an inquisitive Nightstar. "She is."

"Therapy, you say," Nightstar said. "Must have been something for you to be in her room all night."

"It was just therapy," Cipher responded.

"If you say so," Nightstar said.

Cipher's communicator began to beep. He flipped it open. "Hello?"

"_Raziel?_" Amelia's voice answered from the phone.

"Amelia?" Cipher asked. "What is it?"

"_My mom is sending me to that school today,_" Amelia replied. "_I just wanted to say good-bye._"

"Ok," Cipher said. "But I'll see you soon."

"_See you soon,_" Amelia answered.

"Is it that girl you're tutoring?" Nightstar asked.

"Yes," Cipher replied. "She's like me, a psychic. She can imprint the minds of others in her immediate area onto hers in such a way that she can mimic their knowledge and skills. However, it fades away when the person whose knowledge and skills she's copying leaves her area. The Trust wants her."

"Them again?" Bladefire asked.

"Yes," Cipher confirmed. "And they're not going to have her. They'll be coming for her shortly, and that is when I'll intercede."

"You want us to come with you?" Inferno asked.

"I'd like that," Cipher answered.

* * *

That day, the Titans went to the Coeur residence, traveling in their mobile base. Once they were within sight of it, they noticed a black limo in front of the house and Amelia stepping inside it.

"Split up," Nightstar ordered. "Bladefire, Beast Girl, Mercury, you three stake out Amelia's house and make sure no Brain Trust goons come to kill her mother. The rest of us will follow that limo and get Amelia away from the Trust."

"Got it," Bladefire responded as he, Beast Girl, and Mercury exited the mobile base.

The other Titans followed the limo all the way to the Brain Trust's cover academy. Once there, they infiltrated the academy, watching from their secret posts as Amelia entered with Bombshell and Brick. They followed the trio silently, waiting until Amelia had been shown to her room.

"I think it's time we made our move," Nightstar said. "Cipher, you get Amelia out of there; the rest of us will distract Bombshell and Brick."

"Sure," Cipher answered.

Nightstar immediately launched an assault on Bombshell and Brick, lacerating both of them with her energy whip. Inferno began shooting intense waves of heat at the two Brain Trust operatives and Samara attacked with dark energy.

As all of that was going on, Cipher sneaked into Amelia's room.

"I have something to show you," he said. Without another word, he grabbed Amelia by her arm and exited the room.

"What are you doing?" Amelia asked, surprised and somewhat frightened.

"He's taking the girl!" Bombshell shouted.

"I'll stop him," Brick said. "You keep his friends occupied."

As Cipher made his way toward the underground area of the cover academy, he was blocked by Brick.

"Let go of the girl, Crestmore," he said.

"And what will you do if I don't?" Cipher asked.

Brick charged Cipher with borderline superhuman speed. However, Cipher's speed was actually superhuman and he bounded out of Brick's way while still holding Amelia. He began to run down the corridor, still carrying Amelia.

"What's going on?" Amelia asked.

"Don't worry," Cipher replied. "I won't let anyone hurt you. I just have to show you the truth."

"Why are your friends attacking that woman?" Amelia asked.

Cipher continued running, dashing down the stairway. He spotted Brain Trust guards running up the stairs to intercept him, but he dodged them. He made his way to an elevator, which dinged to let him know that it had reached his level. The elevator opened, revealing more guards. Cipher simply beat them into general helplessness and carried Amelia with him into the elevator. He pressed the black button that would take him to the underground sanctum of the Brain Trust.

Once there, he and Amelia exited. He opened a door and stepped inside with Amelia, where they found telekinetics practicing assassination techniques. Entering another room showed a cyberpath being wired to a computer, the monitor of which showing images of clandestine data acquired from government and corporate mainframes all over the world. A third room showed a young woman in a trance.

"Why is she like that?" Amelia asked.

"Astral projection," Cipher replied. "Her mind is elsewhere, which can be used for either spying or long-distance telepathic or telekinetic attacks on a person." He looked at Amelia grimly. "This is the truth of the Brain Trust. They don't want to help you; they want to mold you into a weapon. A person who can acquire the knowledge and skill of anyone she is in contact with is a very valuable weapon to them."

"Now, son, why did you have to go and show that to her?" the voice of Azazel questioned mockingly. "Such a horrible child you are."

"Azazel," Cipher growled.

Azazel stood before Cipher, having regenerated the arm that had been shattered in his last encounter with his son. Cipher summoned his psychic rapier, while Azazel summoned his psychic broadsword.

"Stay by me, Amelia," Cipher said.

"O-ok," Amelia stammered.

Azazel and Cipher charged each other, their respective psychic swords clashing against each other.

"How did you get your arm back?" Cipher asked.

"Everything you're capable of, I am – only to a much higher level," Azazel replied.

"We'll see about that," Cipher answered as he slashed at Azazel, who blocked his slash and swept his leg out to trip him. Cipher jumped over his father's leg and kicked him twice.

"You've gotten stronger," Azazel remarked. "I'm somewhat impressed."

Cipher didn't answer that, instead opting to slash Azazel again. Azazel ducked and spun into a slash that cut through Cipher's shirt and the flesh underneath. Cipher bore the pain and let his wound heal while resuming the attack on Azazel.

As father and son battled, Amelia watched in both fright and fascination. The enmity between them was palpable, like a choking fog that covered the entirety of the battlefield.

The air around Azazel warped and lashed out at Cipher, knocking him back.

"You may be stronger," he said, "but you're still nothing compared to me."

"You think so?" Cipher asked, pulling out three _senbon_ from one of his pockets and propelling them all at Azazel, who generated a shield to "catch" the _senbon_ and propel them back at him. Cipher dodged and resumed the swordfight between himself and Azazel.

As their swords clashed, Cipher suddenly felt as though his mind was on fire.

"What . . . are you doing . . . to me?" he asked.

"It's a psychic torture instrument," Azazel replied. "By forcing my mental presence into your mind, I am essentially psychically flaying you."

Cipher managed a brief chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Azazel asked.

"This," Cipher replied and formed his own mental presence into a blade that pierced Azazel's mind, generating a psychic feedback that knocked them both out.

* * *

When Cipher woke up, he was back in Titans Tower, resting on the medical cot.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"A few days," Nightstar replied. "I almost thought you'd never wake up."

"Sorry I scared you like that," Cipher said.

"It's all right," Nightstar answered. "Long as you're here."

"What happened to Amelia?" Cipher asked.

"She's back with her mom," Nightstar replied. "Safe and sound, although they'll be moving away soon. My recommendation, so the Brain Trust wouldn't be able to find them so easily."

* * *

Two days later, Cipher was about to leave Titans Tower.

"Why are you leaving?" Nightstar asked.

"Yeah," Mercury agreed. "I mean, who's going to help me collect the entirety of _Dead Man's Hand?_"

"It's something I have to do," Cipher replied. "What I did with Samara helped me realize some things about myself. Some things I'd been suppressing for a long time. Mainly, that I don't really know who Raziel Crestmore is. Then again, that's what happens when you hide behind other selves for so long."

"And you think leaving will help you find out who you are?" Nightstar asked.

"I need to do this, Mar'i," Cipher said. He reached out and stroked her face gently. "It's the only way I can be better, and I want to be better. I want to be the man you deserve."

He kissed her gently.

"I'll see you again," he whispered once he broke the kiss. "Of that, you can be assured."

"I'll wait for you," Nightstar whispered.

"You don't have to do that," Cipher murmured.

"It's because I love you, Raziel, that I am willing to wait for you to come back to me," Nightstar spoke, softly yet firmly.

"I know," Cipher uttered. "I love you, too."

And with those final words, he was gone.

* * *

End Notes: Don't worry your pretty little heads. For those of you that like Raziel/Cipher, he will return eventually. When that happens is entirely up to me, though, so don't pester me too much.

In the meantime, I have Arc 4 to start up, which will have Samara in the spotlight. Considering that she's the daughter of Raven and the granddaughter of Trigon (and also the granddaughter of Slade, given who her father is), I'm certain you can tell what that means. Be seeing you shortly. Just drop a review for me while I'm away.


	27. Blood: Her Portrait in Black

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 4: "Blood"

Chapter 1: "Her Portrait in Black"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans, comic or animated, does not belong to me. It's owned by DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I only own anybody that isn't Nightstar, Mercury, Slade, Ravager, Brother Blood, or anybody you might recognize from the show or comics. As I've said before, Mercury is jointly owned by DC and Marvel via their Amalgam project back in 1996, while everyone else is a DC exclusive.

Author's note: It's amazing that I've gotten this far. Seriously, this is the longest story I've ever written and that's mainly because it's an ongoing series rather than a self-contained story. Anyway, the spotlight will shine this time on none other than the daughter of Raven herself, Samara. If you're wondering how Slade shows up in this, consider who Samara's father is and you'll be a bit closer to figuring out what Slade's motivations are. Considering whom Samara's maternal grandfather is you can guess what this arc is about. Now let's begin.

* * *

The thirst burned within her. She tried to fight it, she tried to meditate it away, but the thirst would not be denied.

Once again, she found herself haunting the corridors of Titans Tower, her destination the room of a certain firestarter. She warped through the door, easily entering the room.

She glided through the darkness, perfectly at home within it. She stopped at his bed, gazing forlornly at the sleeping fire user.

She hated doing this to him, but she needed this. The thirst needed to be quenched.

She climbed onto the bed, straddling his sleeping frame. She noted idly that the sheets had been pushed down to his hips, revealing a toned torso. She bent down, her mouth descending to his throat. She kissed it gently before opening her mouth and letting her fangs sink into the vein in his neck. She held him in his sleeping trance as she fed from him, his blood pouring down her throat. A muffled moan escaped from her, the sensuous pleasure of his blood in her mouth nearly too much for her.

She pulled away, ashamed of herself all over again. He was her closest friend, perhaps more than that, and she had violated him.

She healed the wound she had left on his neck, erasing the evidence of her crime. She got off him and walked away.

To her surprise, she heard his voice murmur her name, but she pretended to ignore it, warping through the door and returning to her room.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

* * *

Morning came and the six Titans assembled for breakfast. Throughout the breakfast, Inferno kept shooting looks at Samara . . . looks that implied that he was very much incensed with her and holding it in. Fire flashed in his eyes every time he looked at her, and those flames were certainly not welcoming.

Samara carefully avoided looking at Inferno, guilt roiling inside her. She could sense his anger, though; it did violence to her mind like a battering ram did violence to a particularly stubborn door.

Finally, it seemed that the firestarter could not hold in his fury anymore.

"Samara," he spoke, his voice a deadly weapon. "We need to talk." He turned to look at the other Titans. "Alone."

Inferno stood up and walked out into the corridor of Titans Tower, Samara following him. Once he was sure that they were out of earshot, he glared at Samara.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Don't lie to me, Samara. We've known each other too long. I deserve better than that."

A pause. "What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong." His voice deepened in its rage. "For the past few weeks, I've woken up feeling drained. I just thought it was because I wasn't sleeping enough, but last night . . . I felt you. I didn't know how, but I did." His eyes narrowed at her. "Now. Why?"

"Remember my eighteenth birthday?"

"Yeah, we had ourselves a little party."

"That was when it started. The cravings. I drank as much as I could, but the cravings didn't go away. When I smelled blood, the cravings intensified."

"You're a vampire now?"

"Not quite. Many demon species drink blood, not just vampires. I tried stealing from blood banks, but it wouldn't do. I needed blood directly from a living source."

"Why did you choose me?"

"I have feelings for you. The not-friendship kind. The kind that have me dreaming of you at night . . . when I can dream."

A bitter chuckle issued from the pyrokinetic. "You know what hurts the most, Sam?"

"What?"

"That you didn't ask. I'd have given you my blood if you needed it so badly. Anything you needed, I would have given you."

Samara looked into his eyes and saw anger, but hurt, betrayal, and tortured love were more apparent in his eyes.

"Will you still come to my graduation ceremony today?"

"I'd come anywhere you needed me to be."

* * *

In the late afternoon, Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, Mercury, and Inferno were in semiformal wear for Samara's graduation ceremony. Raven and Joseph Wilson were there as well, since it was their daughter graduating. Dick and Barbara Grayson were also there, since Dick was best friends with Raven and Joey.

"Today's a good day, isn't it?" Raven observed.

"Yeah," Dick agreed.

The nine were observing from the bottom side bleachers outside the football field, which was where the graduation ceremony was being held. When they heard Samara's name spoken over the loudspeakers, all nine pairs of eyes turned to watch as she gracefully walked across the field to take her place among her fellow graduates.

Mercury suddenly gasped in horror.

"Peter?" Beast Girl asked. "What's wrong?"

"No, no, no, no," he muttered. "Hell, hell, hell. They're here, they're here, they're freaking here!"

"Who?" Barbara asked.

Beast Girl sniffed the air. "Blood and sulfur."

The air behind Samara twisted and warped, a pair of red-covered arms reaching out and grasping her, followed by the torso, legs, and head of a silver-haired, crimson-eyed young man clad in black-and-red robes. Out of that same warped air stepped a small army of sleek, golden androids that resembled more streamlined versions of Cyborg.

The regular students, teachers, and parents began to panic, while Mercury immediately bounded out of his seat, his clothes glowing metallically before they remolded themselves into his costume.

"He's got the right idea," Nightstar said. "Titans Together!"

The other four Titans left their seats as well, moving toward the robed man.

Mercury ran toward the androids and the robed man, lightning crackling around his body and moving toward his right hand.

"Let go of her!" he shouted.

The androids immediately moved to intercept him. With a cry of rage, Mercury impaled one of the androids with his lightning-charged right hand. Said right hand vibrated so furiously that the android exploded into shrapnel, the motion of which Mercury redirected to strike other androids.

Meanwhile, Nightstar manipulated her purple energy like a steel wire, slicing through the androids like a hot knife through butter. Bladefire cut through the androids with his energy sword, while Beast Girl attacked as a cat-girl.

Inferno accelerated the molecular activity of the air around him, creating heat that lightened his body to the point where he was capable of speeds greater than that of the average human. He used that to his advantage, dodging the androids that attempted to block him from getting at that robed man that was currently holding Samara.

"Who are you?" Samara asked angrily.

"Brother Blood," the robed man whispered.

"What do you want with me?" Samara interrogated.

"You will bring me the world that I desire," Brother Blood answered. "And to think, all of this wouldn't have been possible if you hadn't given in to the cravings of your blood that first time."

Samara's eyes widened in horror at what Brother Blood had just told her.

"Let her go!" Inferno shouted.

"Why should I?" Brother Blood asked.

Inferno just aimed a cold stare at Brother Blood. "If you don't, I'll pry her from you and beat you until you beg for mercy."

"Really?" Brother Blood asked. "Try it, boy."

Inferno charged Brother Blood, only to be frozen in place by the elder of the two.

"How the –?" he asked.

"Surprised?" Brother Blood asked cruelly before torturing the firestarter with his own flames. "You see, Jeremiah, this is real pyromancy, not like your pathetic match-play."

Inferno gritted his teeth, refusing to scream.

"Stop!" Samara cried out.

"You want me to stop?" Brother Blood asked with a twisted smile. As he looked down upon her, the twisted crimson flames around Inferno intensified. He bent down and bit her throat, drinking her blood. Samara's eyes widened as her mouth formed into an "O" of pain.

"NO!" Inferno cried out, struggling against Blood's fire torture.

A shadow shaped like a bird materialized before the three and Raven stepped out of it, the shadowy bird reforming into a lance of psychokinetic energy that separated Brother Blood from Samara. This had the additional effect of stopping Blood's fiery torment of Inferno.

Samara writhed on the grass, pain inflaming every neuron of her body.

"Samara!" Inferno shouted, beginning to run to her, only to be stopped by a telekinetic barrier. "Raven, what are you doing?"

"It's not safe for you to be near her right now," Raven answered.

Indeed, it wasn't. Burning scarlet runes formed on Samara's body, burning away her clothes to reveal pallid gray skin underneath. Her nails grew longer, more like claws, and her eyeteeth grew sharper. Her eyes glowed red and her chakra gem opened to reveal an amethyst third eye.

Samara rose with an unholy scream, the transformation corroding her rational thought.

"Blood . . ." she rasped and sank into a black warp in the ground, reemerging from the ground below him with a vicious strike from the heel of her palm. The force of her strike broke Blood's jaw, but before he could fix it, she was on him with a vicious slash of her clawed fingers.

Inferno ran to Samara, unheeding of Raven's calls for him to stop even as she ran to intercept him. He grabbed Samara and pulled her off Brother Blood.

"That's enough," he whispered into her ear.

Samara struggled against him, thrashing in his arms and yowling like a demonic cat.

"Stop struggling," he whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's me, Jeremiah. Your friend."

"F-friend . . ." Samara echoed in a guttural voice, relaxing in his grip.

Brother Blood warped the air around him, disappearing into it along with his android warriors.

The other Titans regrouped with Inferno, Samara, and Raven, along with Joey, Dick, and Barbara.

"What happened?" Inferno asked.

"Blood's androids started going after civilians," Nightstar replied. "We managed to get them away, but . . . a good number of them got hurt. Badly. No fatalities, but they'll be needing medical treatment."

Mercury was looking at Inferno and Samara askance.

"What are you looking at?" Samara asked, having calmed herself down and now physically normal again.

Mercury simply looked down.

Samara looked down with him and noted that she was nearly naked, most of her dress and graduation robe having been incinerated by the runes that appeared on her body.

"Oh."

Inferno faintly blushed.

"Don't look now, but here comes the Wicked Witch of Jump," Beast Girl said, noting Principal Elizabeth Alderman stalking toward the Titans.

"This is an outrage," Alderman stated, venom and fury in her voice. "An outrage that I will not stand for!" She glared at the six Titans. "You're expelled. All of you, except you, Miss Roth-Wilson; you'll be getting your diploma in the mail later today. As for the rest of you, I don't want to see any of you near this school ever again."

"That's completely unfair, Ms. Alderman," Dick said. "My children and their friends saved lives today. The reason nobody died was that they were there to prevent it."

"That man who just attacked us came for her," Alderman answered, pointing at Samara. "If not for her presence, he wouldn't have been here. However, I can't revoke a graduation. The matter still remains that the Titans are a danger to their fellow students just by their very presence, and I cannot allow my students to be endangered. Therefore, the Titans cannot attend this school next year. They will have to find somewhere else to finish their education." She glared at the six. "Now get out of here before I have you arrested for trespassing."

Reluctantly, the Titans departed from their school for what would be the last time.

* * *

Once they were back at Titans Tower, Nightstar exploded.

"That _bitch!_" she screamed, her eyes a luridly glowing, angry violet. "How _dare_ she? Miserable, bigoted _bitch!_"

Her energy whip lashed out, only to be caught by Bladefire.

"We don't need to destroy everything just because we're pissed," he said. "Yes, Alderman is a miserable bigot who needs to be put in her place. But we're not going to accomplish anything by lashing out at everything. And maybe this is a blessing in disguise."

"What the hell do you mean?" Beast Girl asked.

"Public identities are a dangerous thing," Bladefire replied. "Especially for those we choose to associate with."

"She's still not right," Mercury insisted bitterly.

"No, she isn't," Bladefire agreed. "But we have to face up to the fact that maintaining a public identity is dangerous if we choose to associate with normal humans."

"At this point, we have worse things to worry about," Raven said. "Like Brother Blood."

"Isn't Brother Blood supposed to be some old guy?" Beast Girl asked.

"Not the one that came after us," Inferno replied. "He looked young. Really young. I'd say just a little older than Samara."

"He's probably some kind of successor to the Brother Blood we fought," Dick said. "He was using the old Blood's tech, if those androids were anything to go by."

"Whoever he is, we're going to stop him," Bladefire said.

"Samara, may I talk to you?" Raven asked.

"Yes, Mother," Samara answered.

* * *

Mother and daughter warped through the floor and into Samara's room.

"You've been feeding, haven't you?" Raven asked.

"Yes," Samara admitted.

"You've put yourself in great danger, Samara," Raven said. "They'll be coming for you."

"Who will?" Samara asked.

"The demons," Raven replied. "And the demonically empowered. They'll sense your power and desire to make it their own."

"_Samara,_" a voice whispered to her.

"Who is this?" Samara asked, her fists clenching and dark energy covering them.

"_Come, Samara,_" the voice whispered. "_Come to me._"

"Stop it," Samara snarled. "Leave me alone."

Raven gently gripped Samara's hand, letting her calm flow into her daughter, focusing Samara's mind enough for her to overcome the voice speaking to her.

"Thank you, Mother," Samara spoke.

"You're welcome," Raven answered. "Now I suggest finding something better to wear than rags."

Samara looked down at herself. "I suppose so."

Raven walked out of Samara's room, briefly pausing to turn and look at her daughter.

"I like the décor."

"Thanks," Samara replied.

* * *

Back in the main room, Inferno paced furiously.

"You're worried about her, aren't you?" Raven said, reappearing before the Titans.

Inferno suppressed his fright. "Please, Raven, a little warning."

Raven's lips curled into a smile. "Don't worry, Jeremiah. She'll be fine, but . . . someone attempted to make contact with her."

"Was it Blood?" Inferno asked.

"No," Raven replied. "It was someone else."

"Who?" Inferno asked.

"I don't know," Raven answered. "I have to warn you . . . about Samara."

"She's not a danger to us, is she?" Nightstar asked.

"Not in and of herself, no," Raven responded. "However, this isn't the first time demonic presences have reached out to her. When she was a child, she had her imaginary friends, like all children did. However, those imaginary friends were really demons trying to lure her into evil. I had to place protective wards on her to keep the demons from sensing her. Unfortunately, the power of those wards began to fade when she entered puberty and now that she's begun to give in to the cravings of her demon blood . . . the protection is completely gone. She's vulnerable again."

"Give in to the cravings of her demonic blood?" Dick asked.

"What she means is that I began drinking blood," Samara answered, materializing among the Titans. "Human blood. Specifically, Jeremiah's."

"And he consented?" Bladefire asked.

"I was sleeping," Inferno replied. "I didn't even know until last night."

"That explains why you've been so lethargic in the morning the past few weeks," Beast Girl remarked.

Mercury stared at Samara. "You were feeding off him while he slept? Excuse me, but . . . sick. Very sick."

"Peter, back off," Inferno said.

"I'm sorry, but I find something very wrong with drinking somebody's blood without their consent," Mercury said. "Considering that when you drink someone's blood, you're practically taking their life into yourself . . . it's tantamount to rape, for Christ's sake."

Inferno was about to say something, but Samara raised a hand to stop him.

"He's right," she said. "You're my closest friend, even more than that to me, and I took advantage of you because I couldn't control myself."

"You're handling this better than I suspected," Raven mused, looking at both Samara and Inferno.

"I'd fight for her to the end," Inferno stated.

"I know," Raven answered. "I've known for quite a while."

* * *

The next morning, Samara was meditating on the rooftop of Titans Tower when she heard a voice calling to her.

"_Samara,_" the voice whispered. "_Come to me. Come to me._"

_Go away,_ Samara thought.

"_Come to me,_" the voice insisted.

Samara rose from her meditative trance and flew away from Titans Tower, pursuing the voice.

"_You're getting closer,_" it said.

_Who are you?_ Samara asked.

"_You'll see,_" the voice replied.

Samara landed in front of a grotto and entered.

"Are you here?" she asked.

"Yes," the voice spoke, in reality instead of in her mind.

Samara walked further into the grotto, regretting that she hadn't brought a flashlight with her since it was so dark.

"Here I am," the voice spoke and Samara could see firelight inside the grotto, illuminating the speaker. He wore thick bandage-style bindings crisscrossed around his chest, upper arms, and calves. The rest of his body was covered in thick black leather reminiscent of a motorcyclist. The lower half of his face was concealed by a black mask and a thin scarf-like fabric was tied around his neck. The white hair on his head was spiked in all directions and icy blue eyes were all that could be seen of his facial features.

"Who are you?" Samara asked.

"Kiryu," the man replied, his voice flowing like tempestuous waters. "Your consort."

"Consort?" Samara echoed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, but soon you will," Kiryu answered. "You have no idea how desirable you are."

"Oh, I think I have a clue," Samara remarked sarcastically.

"I'm being serious, Samara," Kiryu said. "I'm not the only one who wants you . . . but I'm going to make sure that no one else can have you."

"I'm not some possession," Samara snarled. "I've had enough of you. I'm going home."

She warped into the darkness of the cave, rematerializing back in her room.

* * *

"Samara?" Inferno asked, knocking on the door.

"What is it, Jeremiah?" Samara asked.

"We're ready for breakfast and I was wondering if you'd like to join us," Inferno replied. "Don't worry; I'll make sure Peter behaves himself . . . unless he wants a foot broken off in his hindquarters."

Samara chuckled at the imagery.

"I'm coming," she said.

"Good," Inferno said. "See you there."

Samara exited her room, trying to put Kiryu out of her mind.

But she could not get over the want that had been so apparent in those icy blue eyes.

* * *

End Notes: I might as well end it here because there's not much reason for me to continue this chapter. Besides, I gotta save the good stuff for future chapters.

I'm actually rather irked with myself for not giving Barbara and Joey something to do. Granted, they were helping Dick, Raven, and the Titans who weren't taking on Brother Blood protect the civilians, but they never spoke. Ok, so Joey's mute, but that's no excuse for Barbara and I'm sorry for that bit of inadequacy.

The Brother Blood that appeared in this chapter and will be appearing in future chapters of this arc is the Brother Blood that appeared in the recent Teen Titans comics, only older.

Slade and Ravager will eventually make an appearance, but I'm not telling you when.

See you later and in the meantime, try to drop a review.


	28. Blood: Wake the Night

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 4: "Blood"

Chapter 2: "Wake the Night"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, Slade, Ravager, Brother Blood, and Raven do not belong to me, either; all except Mercury are the exclusive property of DC Comics, while Mercury himself is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everyone else is my creation.

Author's note: There is a very specific reason Brother Blood, Kiryu, and the other demons you'll see in this and future chapters are after Samara. I'll reveal it in the course of the story, though. In the meantime, enjoy.

Dedication: To The Wolf Demon, formerly known as The Wolf God. Happy Birthday, man.

* * *

In a dimension of eternal night, a girl gazed into a fountain, red-gold eyes staring forth from a doll-like face.

The girl had long, flowing white hair with a tinge of blonde. Her pale skin was offset by a sleeveless black dress that was short in the front and flowed down almost to her ankles in the back. The shortness of the dress skirt in the front exposed thigh-high black boots. Black fabric that flowed from the elbows covered her arms.

The girl stared into the fountain, seeing the image of Samara. She reached out to touch the image.

"My consort," she murmured before slipping into the fountain and sinking into it.

* * *

In Titans Tower, Samara was taking a bath to relax. However, she couldn't help thinking about Brother Blood and Kiryu.

"What do they want with me?" she wondered.

She sank her head beneath the surface of the water, only to see someone else in the tub with her when she rose. It was a girl, pale-skinned, white-haired, and dressed in a semi-elaborate black outfit.

"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing in my bath?" Samara asked.

The girl smiled slowly at Samara.

"My name is Leknaat and you will be my consort. The water is how I traverse dimensions."

"Great, another one," Samara grumbled.

Leknaat moved closer to Samara, positioned between the partly demonic girl's legs.

"Granddaughter of Trigon, you will be mine," the black-clad girl purred. She leaned closer to Samara until their lips met. Samara attempted to pull away, but the white-haired girl had a stronger grip than expected.

There was a wind and a voice saying, "Cool, lesbian porn."

Leknaat pulled away from Samara. "Go away, little mortal."

"I'm not little," Mercury answered. "In the meantime, do you mind getting out of that bath, because I think Samara's interested in somebody else?"

Leknaat glared at Mercury and sank back into the water, vanishing.

"What are you doing here?" Samara asked.

"I sensed somebody shifting planes," Mercury replied. "Hey, I vibrate in and out of worlds. Speaking of that, I once vibrated into a dimension where we were all girls."

"You must have enjoyed that immensely," Samara drawled.

"Yes," Mercury admitted. "Bladefire makes a pretty hot girl. Although in this dimension, he already looks kind of like a girl."

"Could you leave?" Samara asked. "I'd like to enjoy the rest of my bath by myself."

"Sure," Mercury replied and was gone a split second later.

* * *

The next night, Samara was on her patrol. She spotted a mugger pulling a gun out on a couple that had just exited a theater.

With barely a thought, she changed into a black astral raven and dove into the mugger's body. The mugger's eyes glowed violet and he began punching himself, the couple wondering what was going on. When the mugger was unconscious from his self-beating, Samara exited his body and flew into the night.

As she continued her patrol, she became aware of another presence. The presence weighed heavily on her, perhaps as a sign of the power held by it. It felt very ancient and very . . . sinister.

"Samara," a deep, masculine voice rumbled.

"All right, who is it this time?" Samara asked irritably.

"Look next to you," the voice replied.

Samara looked next to her and saw a man flying next to her on wings so black that they blended into the night sky. His hair was of a similar color, as were his clothes. The only color that could be spotted on him was his eyes, which were a sharp crimson.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Melchiah," the winged man replied.

"You're a fallen angel, aren't you?" Samara deduced.

"Yes, I am," Melchiah replied.

"I suppose you want me to be your consort," Samara sighed. "Just wait until I'm done patrolling and then we'll talk."

"No, how about I patrol with you?" Melchiah suggested. "It won't be so bad, now will it?"

"Fine, but I'm keeping an eye on you," Samara rejoined.

Melchiah turned and pointed to S.T.A.R. Labs.

"I see several thieves trying to break in," he said. "They're using light-refracting technology to make themselves invisible." He smirked cruelly. "But they're not invisible to me."

"Don't kill them," Samara advised.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Melchiah drawled sarcastically before flying over to one thief and tapping him on the shoulder. The thief turned, only to look upon the fallen angel's maliciously grinning face.

"Oh, I am so fragged," the thief uttered before Melchiah struck him, disrupting the tech that kept him invisible.

The other thieves began firing wrist-mounted laser weapons at Melchiah, but he easily deflected them with his bare hands.

"Pathetic," he sneered.

"Who is this guy?" one of the remaining thieves asked.

"You don't need to know that," Melchiah replied.

"Just finish him!" another thief shouted, again opening fire on Melchiah, who folded his wings around himself as a kind of shield to deflect the laser blasts.

"My turn," Melchiah said. He drew a sword, the blade of which ignited into unholy flames. He sped toward one thief and slashed him with the fiery sword. The other thieves began to run, but they were halted by a black barrier shaped like a raven.

"Where do you think you're going?" Samara asked.

The thieves nearly urinated on themselves from sheer terror.

After the thieves were subdued and properly arrested by the police, Samara and Melchiah had departed, only to encounter Kiryu.

"Samara, my consort, what are you doing with him?" Kiryu asked.

"I'm not your consort," Samara replied. She looked at Melchiah, who was about to speak. "And I'm not yours, either."

Melchiah just smirked at Samara before turning to Kiryu.

"So . . . you're Kiryu," he remarked. "The legendary assassin of the demon planes. You don't look like much."

"Really," Kiryu answered before materializing gauntlets with retractable blades on each arm. He extended both blades. "Come on, then."

Melchiah just continued looking at Kiryu. "It would be a waste of my time and effort to fight you."

Kiryu scoffed. "Afraid, are you?"

"No," Melchiah answered.

"Then face me," Kiryu challenged.

"You'll regret it," Melchiah answered.

The two flew at each other, Kiryu slashing at Melchiah with his arm-blade. Melchiah swerved around the swing and struck Kiryu in the throat with his fist. Kiryu gagged, trying to catch his breath, but Melchiah continued his vicious assault. Finally, Kiryu caught Melchiah's wrist in mid-strike and spun the fallen angel around, throwing him some distance away.

Melchiah righted himself in midair and shot himself forward like a missile, striking Kiryu in the stomach. Kiryu slammed a double-handed fist into Melchiah's back, right where the wings met flesh. Melchiah howled in pain and rage, striking back viciously at the leather-and-wrappings-clad assassin demon.

Samara watched, unsure of whether to stop them or let them go on.

_If I let them go on, they might just kill each other off and I wouldn't have to worry about either of them coming after me,_ she thought. _On the other hand, if I stop them, they might turn their attentions back to me, and that would suck tremendously. Then again, it's kind of flattering._

Melchiah and Kiryu continued their battle, Kiryu slicing at Melchiah with his arm-blades and Melchiah using his wings as both a shield and a weapon, the latter use coming in the form of beating Kiryu with those wings.

"Bastard," Kiryu snarled.

Just then, Samara heard a familiar voice say, "Come now, Samara, time to get away from these foolish boys." Before she could protest, she was pulled into a shadowy warp.

* * *

On the other side, she found a luxurious bedroom, herself lying on a four-poster bed covered in black sheets. The posts were quite high and connected by purple curtains.

"Where am I?" Samara asked.

"My home away from home," Leknaat answered, joining Samara on the bed. Samara shied away from Leknaat, but the gothic-styled girl pulled her closer.

"Who are you?" Samara asked.

"Leknaat, Princess of the Shadow Regions of Hell," Leknaat replied. "And you, Samara, will be my consort."

"Join the club," Samara quipped sarcastically. "It seems everyone wants me."

"Yes, but only one of us shall have you," Leknaat responded. "And that one is me. The sooner you understand this, the more content you will be."

Samara glared at her.

"Why do you want me so badly?" she asked.

Leknaat smiled. "You have an esteemed lineage. Your grandfather was none other than Trigon, the Red Lord of Hell. His power lives on in you . . . and I want it. It's a pleasurable side benefit that you're so beautiful."

Samara began to smirk. "So you don't love me; you just want my power. I'm somewhat relieved."

Leknaat straddled Samara. "Oh, I don't just want your power. If that was all I wanted, I would have taken it. No, I want everything else you have to offer me – your body, your soul, _everything._ I want you to surrender it all to me."

Samara's eyes glowed and Leknaat was thrown off her by telekinetic force. The shadow demoness merely landed in front of the bed in a feral crouch.

"You resist now, but what for?" she asked. "For your friends? For your family? For the fire wielder? Heed the call of your blood, Samara."

* * *

Before the partly demonic girl could say anything, she found herself back in the main room of Titans Tower.

"You certainly took a while," Inferno remarked. "What happened?"

"I have suitors," Samara answered. "Of the demonic variety. I left two of them fighting over me and the third snatched me away to her place."

"Her?" Inferno asked.

"Demon marriages work differently from human marriages," Samara replied. "If two demons of the same gender want to be consorts, they can be."

"Ok," Inferno answered.

"Her?" Mercury asked. "You mean that girl dressed in black who was in your bath last night?"

"There was a girl in your bath last night?" Nightstar asked.

"Yeah, there was," Samara replied. "Her name's Leknaat."

"Samara," Melchiah's voice spoke. The fallen angel materialized a second later, staring at her with smoldering eyes.

The other five Titans stood beside Samara protectively.

"Give her to me," Melchiah ordered.

"Not a chance in hell," Inferno answered.

"You haven't seen hell, mortal," Melchiah sneered. "And I'll be taking her, anyway. I only asked as a courtesy."

"Actually, you're not going to take her," Nightstar said, her energy whip lashing out at Melchiah, who caught it between his index and middle fingers.

"Impressive," the fallen angel sneered. "Now it's my turn." Fiery red coloration infiltrated the energy whip, using it as a conductor to attack Nightstar. The half-alien girl cried out in pain as the hellfire surged through her body, singeing her soul as much as her flesh.

"Titans, take him down," Bladefire ordered, extending his energy sword and attacking Melchiah along with the other Titans.

The fallen angel folded his wings around him as a shield, easily deflecting Bladefire's sword strikes, Beast Girl's panther claws, Mercury's speed-enhanced blows, and Inferno's flames. Not even Nightstar's energy whip or Samara's living darkness could penetrate the wing shield.

"Coward!" Inferno yelled. "Quit hiding behind those wings and face us!"

A sinister chuckle could be heard beneath the fallen angel's wings. Then those wings opened and a flaming sword was drawn.

Bladefire challenged Melchiah first, having a sword of his own, after all. The two parried and blocked each other's slashes, each one occasionally getting past the other's defenses but only occasionally. Of course, it hurt far more whenever Melchiah got past Bladefire's defenses.

"You're not bad," Melchiah complimented.

"Likewise," Bladefire answered with a feral smirk.

Their swords clashed again and Bladefire drove his knee into Melchiah's stomach, not really knocking the breath out of him but surprising him enough for the half-alien boy to slash him. He attempted to follow up with a kick, but Melchiah blocked it.

"Clever," Melchiah said, "but unless you're aiming to kill, you'd best not bother."

"Don't need to," Bladefire answered before shooting Melchiah with an optic blast that knocked him into a wall.

Melchiah rose to his feet, not looking very happy, but before he could rebound into another attack, Nightstar struck him with her energy whip. Inferno and Samara shot a combined fire-and-darkness attack. Beast Girl tore a gaping wound in his side with her panther claws and Mercury pelted him with super-fast blows.

"Enough!" the fallen angel yelled, generating a wave of hellish power so strong that it blew all the Titans back. When they rose again, they saw that the wound Beast Girl had given him was gone.

"Now how the hell do we fight him?" Beast Girl asked.

"We don't have to hold back on him," Nightstar replied. "Fallen angels don't die the same way humans do."

Mercury charged for another attack, Speed Force energy crackling around his hand. Melchiah merely extended his sword, bracing himself for the platinum-haired speedster's attack. The speed energy gathered in Mercury's hand in the shape of a ball with lightning crackling around it. With a shout, Mercury struck Melchiah with the ball lightning, only for Melchiah to stab him with the hellfire sword.

"Got you, you bastard," the speedster spat out, even as he coughed up blood.

Melchiah just smirked despite the lightning-like Speed Force energy impaling him.

"No. Got _you_."

"Mercury!" Beast Girl cried out in horror.

"For the record, I must say I'm impressed," the fallen angel remarked. "Turning the force that empowers you into a weapon against your enemies. Very innovative."

Mercury's speed weapon dissipated, revealing a bloody wound in Melchiah's chest. Melchiah removed his sword, revealing a similar wound in Mercury's stomach.

Mercury collapsed, concentrating the Speed Force into healing his wound. A blast of molten gold energy struck Melchiah in the same spot Mercury had impaled him before the fallen angel could heal it.

"You're going to pay for hurting him," Beast Girl snarled, leaping at Melchiah with feral speed and slashing him with claws glowing with molten energy. Melchiah yelled in pain and swung his sword – once again ignited – at her. She barely sidestepped the swing and went in for another attack.

"Speed as a weapon and the power to tap into the power of the Earth's core," the fallen angel observed. "You two make an impressive couple."

"If I'm supposed to feel flattered, it's not working," the animal-shifting geokinetic retorted angrily as she swung at Melchiah with a golden-glowing fist. This time, Melchiah caught her fist, gritting his teeth against the pain of the Earth's power attacking him, and spun her into a throw that sent her through the wall.

"Samara, I don't have to keep hurting your friends if you just come with me," Melchiah said.

"Screw you, you son of a bitch," Inferno snarled. "She's not coming with you even if you kill all of us."

Melchiah flew at Inferno, flaming sword at the ready. "Then you've sealed your fate!"

An umbrakinetic shield formed to block the fallen angel, who simply sliced through it with his sword. The psychic backlash from the breached shield elicited a cry of pain from Samara, who collapsed into the arms of a powered-down Inferno. Even as the fallen angel continued his charge, Inferno summoned a fireball and threw it at Melchiah. When the fireball failed to deter him, Inferno leaped out of Melchiah's way while still holding Samara in his arms.

Nightstar and Bladefire shot twin optic blasts at Melchiah, the concussive force of the blasts knocking him back into a kinetically charged punch from Mercury, who had managed to heal the worst of his injury. The speedster subsequently ran to Beast Girl to see if she was all right.

* * *

Inside Samara's mind, the psychic presence of Brother Blood haunted the partly demonic girl.

_What are you doing in my mind?_ Samara asked.

_Helping you,_ Brother Blood replied. _Helping you accept your destiny. You are meant for great things, my dear._

_Get out,_ Samara snarled.

_I can't,_ Blood answered. _I am a part of you now, Samara. Cutting me out would be like removing a limb. I can help you. You have the power to defeat Melchiah. All you have to do is use it._

_And what will that entail?_ Samara questioned.

_Nothing,_ Blood replied. _Only a greater acceptance of the demon in you._

_I already accept the demon in me,_ Samara retorted. _I'm not so much like my mother._

_Then use it,_ Blood goaded. _Drive Melchiah away._

* * *

Samara awakened, the crimson runes burning on her skin once again. Her eyes were crimson once more and her chakra gem had once again transmogrified itself into a third eye.

"Samara?" Inferno asked.

"Yes," Samara replied, her voice a low rasp. She rose from Inferno's arms and stalked toward Melchiah, slamming him into a wall with a wave of her hand. Another wave of her hand sent him flying into the ceiling and pinned him there. "Listen closely, fallen one. You are not welcome in my home. If you ever, _ever_ come near me again, I will not hesitate to unleash the full extent of my powers upon you. Am I understood?"

Melchiah smirked. "You are very much understood. In fact, I am rather impressed by this display of your power. But I will be in touch, no matter what you say."

The fallen angel teleported out of Samara's grip and the crimson runes were gone.

"Whoa," Beast Girl uttered. "Remind me not to make you mad."

"Like you'd ever stop," Samara remarked.

"It looks like you have more control of yourself now than you did when those runes first appeared," Nightstar observed. "What are those, anyway?"

"The inscriptions that mark me as a descendant of Trigon," Samara answered. "It was Blood. His bite triggered the runes the first time and he contacted me just before they manifested this time."

"The bite," Inferno spoke. "It must have transferred part of him into you, connecting the two of you psychically."

"That's what I figured," Samara agreed. She turned to Mercury. "Mind if I heal the rest of that? Even if you heal faster than a normal human, that was still a nasty wound and I can tell you only healed yourself enough so that you could still fight."

Without waiting for his answer, Samara planted her hand on Mercury's stomach and finished his healing.

"Thanks," the speedster said.

"You're welcome," Samara answered.

"We have Blood and three demons coming after you," Bladefire said. "Why they're after you, we have no clue, but it's pretty clear that they all want you to be their consort."

"I know why Leknaat wants me, at least," Samara answered. "It's the power I've inherited from my lineage . . . particularly my grandfather."

"You mean Trigon," Bladefire said. "That makes sense now. If a demon could get his or her hands on the power of Trigon, he or she would be a force to be reckoned with."

"That must be why the others want you," Inferno said, turning to Samara. "And considering that Blood's bite made those runes appear on you, he probably has more of a direct connection to Trigon than the demons pursuing you."

"You'd be very right in your supposition, Jeremiah Crockett," a familiar, menace-laden voice spoke. "Which is why we've taken certain measures to ensure that he cannot get his hands on her."

The Titans whirled to find Slade and Ravager standing before them.

"Hello, Samara," Ravager purred. "Don't you have a hug for your dear auntie and grandpa?"

* * *

End Notes: Might as well end it here, as this is just too good a cliffhanger to shock you with. Slade and Ravager have finally arrived, but are they really here to help or do they have their own agenda?

Noticed the shorter chapters? One, I'm trying to make reading somewhat more bearable for those of you with short attention spans. Two, I don't have as much material as I did before and so I'm being a little more conservative than I usually am.

I got the name Leknaat from a sorceress in the RPG Suikoden and her style of dress from Dark Chi in the manga/animé Chobits. Melchiah is the name of a character in the Legacy of Kain series, specifically Soul Reaver. Note that Soul Reaver is also where I got Raziel's name, for those of you reading that are fans of the game.

Now, if you don't mind, please let me know what you thought of this chapter, good or bad.


	29. Blood: Our Truth

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 4: "Blood"

Chapter 3: "Our Truth"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Mercury, Slade, Ravager, and Brother Blood do not belong to me. All except Mercury are owned by DC Comics, while Mercury is owned jointly by DC and Marvel. Everyone and everything else, excepting anyone you may recognize from the comics or animated series, is mine.

Author's note: Like the cliffhanger I left you with? Oh, you must have been pissed with me for ending the last chapter there. Don't worry, you'll get what you came for, which is demons and the badass-ness of Slade and Ravager. Speaking of those two, I have a surprise in store concerning them. Then again, if you remember Season 4 of Teen Titans, it might not be a surprise.

* * *

The Teen Titans stared down Slade and Ravager, who both seemed to have modified their uniforms.

Slade's new uniform consisted of black leather/polymerized titanium weave with gray metal covering his torso, shoulders, knees, and shins. The metal was ridged at his abdomen, shoulders, and knees, while chain mail-style mesh covered his arms, shoulders, and neck. His hands and forearms were covered by black gloves with metal pads on the backs of the hands and a utility belt wrapped around his waist. The one detail that remained the same was his mask, which was a featureless black on the right side and burnt orange with a singular lens on the left side.

Ravager, on the other hand, seemed to have modified her uniform very little. It remained largely the same, but there were still a few modifications. Like her father's uniform, the armor on her knees and shins was ridged, but not nearly as heavy to allow greater freedom of motion. Her sleeves were now leather/polymerized titanium with gray bands wrapped around her forearms and gray metal pads on the backs of the gloves. Finally, her sides – including the outside of her thighs – were covered in chain mail-style mesh like her shoulders and she'd filled the triangular gap in her chest. Like her father, her mask remained the same – burnt orange on the right side with a singular crimson lens and featureless black on the left side.

"What are you doing here?" Nightstar asked.

"Come now, Nightstar," Ravager replied. "We're not here to hurt you. On the contrary, we're here to help."

"Help? You guys?" Beast Girl asked. "You're joking, and you're even crazier than we think you are if you expect us to buy that."

"Little changeling, we don't expect you to trust us," Slade replied.

"What made you guys want to help us?" Inferno questioned. "What's in it for you?"

"We simply wish to protect Samara," Slade answered. "She's family."

"I wouldn't claim any kind of kinship with psychopaths like you two," Samara snarled.

"Brother Blood isn't going to touch you," Ravager stated. "Father and I will see to that."

"Your concern touches me," Samara remarked sarcastically.

Slade looked at Mercury. "I see you've recovered quite nicely from our last encounter."

"You should know, Slade, I've gotten better," Mercury said. "If you double-cross us, you'll see just how much better."

"I've observed you, Peter Allen," Slade responded. "You may be the most powerful speedster of your generation and you may have learned some new tricks, but you'll find me to be more than a match for you when the time comes."

"Where'd Raziel go?" Ravager asked. "I wanted to thank him for his help."

Nightstar just glared at the younger of the two assassins.

"Sore subject, huh?" Ravager remarked. "Very well. We'll be in touch."

She and Ravager departed Titans Tower, leaving the Titans bewildered.

"What the hell was that?" Beast Girl asked.

"They seemed sincere," Samara replied. "As sincere as they can get, anyway. I still wouldn't trust them, not after our experiences with them."

"Remember that break-in at Grayson Enterprises some months ago?" Bladefire asked. "My father was working on a medical nanotech solution that had the potential to repair damaged immune systems, which could have put an end to scores of diseases. Unfortunately, someone stole it. I've been looking into it and I managed to recover the video feed from that night."

He walked up to the Tower mainframe and typed in one of the keyboard ports connected to it. The image that came up was Slade and Ravager infiltrating the Blüdhaven headquarters of Grayson Enterprises.

"It was them," Bladefire said. "They took it."

"What would they need with medicine?" Mercury asked.

"Nanotechnology is self-repairing," Inferno explained. "It can continually replicate, which would enable a human body to recover from disease faster than normal since the nanotechnology would be constantly replenishing itself. This also leads to enhanced healing abilities and even better . . . in terms of military applications . . . enhanced physical and mental capabilities. That must have been why Slade and Ravager took it."

"Both of them are already enhanced by that serum," Nightstar said, "but if they were to mix it with the nanotech, they'd be even more of a threat."

"It's been a pretty long night," Bladefire said. "We should rest. We can worry about Slade and Ravager tomorrow."

The Titans retired to their rooms, except Inferno, who followed Samara into hers.

"You're really worried, aren't you?" he said.

"How could you tell?" Samara drawled sarcastically.

"Because I've known you for years," Inferno answered. He reached out and pulled her close. "Blood isn't going to get you. Neither are those demons. I won't let them."

"You sure about that?" Samara asked, trepidation clear in her voice.

"I'm sure," Inferno replied. He kissed her gently on the forehead, right above her chakra gem. "Sweet dreams, Sam."

He departed her room, leaving Samara alone with her thoughts . . . and just a bit of hope.

* * *

Bladefire lay on his bed, pondering what had just transpired. As impossible as it was, he felt betrayed. He cursed himself for feeling that way, as he'd known right from the start what sort of woman she was.

_And you slept with her, anyway,_ the little voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his father, commented. _How many encounters did you have with her? Three, at least?_

Bladefire turned onto his side, muttering under his breath.

_Were you that lonely?_ the voice mocked. _That lonely that you'd gladly screw the first girl that offered herself to you, even if she was a killer?_

_You're actually quite wrong on that,_ Bladefire answered. _If I was really going to screw the first girl who offered herself to me, I'd have done it with one of those insipid fangirls of mine. I don't know what it is about her, but I . . . I almost can't help myself when I'm around her._

_I guess that's why you fight her with such enthusiasm,_ the voice remarked. _If only your teammates knew that enthusiasm was really not-that-sublimated sexual tension._

"Thinking of me, Joh'n?" a very familiar voice asked.

Bladefire leaped off the bed and into a fighting stance, energy sword extended.

"Ravager. What are you doing here?" Bladefire asked.

"Is that any way to greet a lover?" Ravager asked, poised right in front of his window and balancing herself on the edge in a rather . . . appealing manner.

"Going to have to get that worked on," Bladefire murmured.

"But you won't," Ravager replied. "You like having me break into your room to have my way with you."

Bladefire just glared.

"I didn't come here to fight," Ravager said.

"Then what are you here for?" Bladefire asked.

"Just a little romp," Ravager answered. "With you, of course, although in my honest opinion it'd be even better if we could convince Nightstar to join us."

Bladefire's eyes went wide and his energy sword dissipated.

"You. Are. Nuts," he said.

"Oh, don't worry, you won't have to touch her," Ravager said. "The both of you can focus all that sexual energy on me and I can focus mine on the two of you. Imagine the fun all three of us will have."

"I don't think I'm ready for that," Bladefire said.

Ravager just smirked.

"For now, let's just have some 'me and you' time," she suggested, hips swaying seductively as she strode over to Bladefire. She gently pushed him back down onto the bed and straddled him, kissing him deeply. Bladefire returned the kiss, hating himself for doing so and yet unable to help himself when in such close physical contact with her. As they kissed, Bladefire removed Ravager's mask, letting her silver hair flow freely.

When Bladefire broke the kiss, he looked at Ravager . . . and saw that she had _two_ eyes, as opposed to one. The right eye was blue as always, but the left eye was black with a purple triplicate whorl around the pupil that resembled three sixes sprouting from the same loop. The skin around and near the left eye had a scarring pattern that almost resembled a snake's scales.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A special enhancement," Ravager replied. "It's an eye that used to belong to a demon who could see every possible immediate move an opponent could make in combat and counter them. Now that I have it, it gives me the same power. Not to mention that moving objects that would be fast to others . . . are slow as molasses to me."

"Is the eye to help you protect Samara?" Bladefire asked.

"She's family, like my father said," Ravager answered.

"Speaking of your father, what are you doing with him?" Bladefire inquired.

"He's my father," Ravager replied. "I . . . need him."

Bladefire sighed sadly, hearing the forlornness in his enemy-slash-lover's voice. He stroked her hair gently.

"I don't wanna think about it," she said. "Just make love to me. Please."

Bladefire looked into her mismatched eyes . . . and kissed her again. Ravager returned the kiss, full of desperation and need.

* * *

The next morning, the half-alien boy woke up and wasn't surprised to find himself alone in his bed. A note lay on the nightstand next to him, which he picked up and read.

"Blade, thanks for last night. Sorry I couldn't stay. See you soon. –R."

Bladefire folded the note and got out of bed, donning a robe and going to the bathroom. He discreetly avoided Nightstar and Beast Girl, for both of them had particularly sharp senses and if they smelled Ravager on him, they'd start asking questions that he didn't want to answer and wasn't even sure he could answer.

After the brief shower, just long enough for him to wash away all traces of Ravager's scent, he returned to his room and dressed himself in his usual uniform. He flew out of the Tower and joined Nightstar in their morning aerobatics, which the other Titans had exited the Tower to witness. The grace and agility with which the twin Titan leaders moved in the air was nothing short of beautiful, particularly in the way they worked together. Granted, the other Titans knew that this had taken years to perfect, but it was still amazing.

One Titan in particular, Samara, felt more at peace after watching this display of perfection. If only she knew what would come this night . . .

* * *

That very night, Jump City became a fiery charnel house.

Demons rampaged through the city streets as the citizens fled, either in cars or on foot. Those demons were by no means the "pretty," human-looking kind; rather, they were the twisted monstrosities seen mostly in nightmares. Those that chose to flee in their cars were not any safer than those that fled on foot, as the demons simply jumped onto the cars and punched through the roofs or windshields. Those that tried to flee on foot were snatched up and killed in the most horrific of fashions, some so badly mangled that there was almost no way of telling that they'd once been living human beings.

In the midst of this carnage was Raven Roth, dressed in a blue cloak over a black corset with silver designs and black skintight pants.

"You won't have her," she whispered fiercely. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"

Black psychokinetic energy lashed forth from her in the form of blades, piercing and shredding several demons. As she was about to attack another demon, a bastard sword impaled the demon from behind and carved it in half. The demon's newly separated halves fell away, revealing Slade.

"Slade," Raven growled. "Here for Samara, too?"

"To the contrary, Raven," Slade answered. "I'm here for the same purpose as you – to protect her."

"Why would you be interested in protecting Samara?" Raven asked suspiciously, even as she summoned another burst of psychokinetic power to kill several more demons approaching.

"She's family," Slade answered simply, suddenly lunging at Raven with his sword. Raven ducked, only to find that she was not the mastermind's intended target. The bastard sword found its way into the chest of yet another demon and Raven noticed that the sword was glowing with a hellish aura.

"Where did you get that?" Raven asked.

"Remember when we battled Trigon?" Slade asked. "I stole a weapon from one of his soldiers." He raised the bastard sword. "This is what I remade it into."

"Where's your lapdog of a daughter?" Raven asked icily.

Slade narrowed his eye at her, his displeasure radiating in waves of killing intent.

Raven's answer came in the form of a battle cry, followed by the sound of a skewering.

"Never call me a lapdog," Ravager spoke harshly, appearing behind Raven. "_Never._"

Raven just chuckled and turned to face the younger woman. "What's the matter, Rose, don't like being called what you are? He's only using you, just like he used Dick and Tara."

Ravager was ready to attack, but Slade held his hand up.

"Ravager, we don't have the time," he said. "Protecting Samara is what matters."

"Your lucky day," Ravager spat at Raven as she moved to join her father's side.

"More like yours," Raven muttered.

A blue-and-silver blur of motion raced into the fray, attacking the demons. Blue energy interlaced with silver lightning could be seen bursting out the backs of several demons.

Purple energy wire sliced through even more demons, as a blue energy sword cut through other demons. Sections of earth tore out of the asphalt and concrete covering them and battered more demons. Demons began combusting and darkness-formed blades cut through more.

"That isn't all of them, is it?" Beast Girl surmised.

"Your grasp of the obvious is indeed impressive," Slade remarked sarcastically.

"Nice seeing you again, Mother," Samara greeted. She glared at Slade and Ravager.

"It seems that for once, our goals coincide," Raven spoke. "I still wouldn't trust the bastard."

"I would expect no less," Slade said.

"It appears that even the lower scum of the demon regions want Samara's power," Ravager observed. "Or are they simply working for higher demons?"

"Most likely," Samara answered. "These creatures are barely sentient; what use would they have for a consort?"

Just then, golden android soldiers made their approach.

"Blood's killing machines," Inferno stated grimly, igniting into fiery mode and attacking the androids with jets of flame. The androids did not seem to be adversely affected by the flames.

"Internal cooling system," Slade deduced. "Activates whenever the external temperature exceeds a certain level. This new Blood is smarter than I thought."

Nightstar and Bladefire charged Blood's androids with their respective energy weapons, cutting through them like wet tissue paper. Beast Girl changed into a rhinoceros and began ramming the androids, using her horn to impale them. Mercury ran around the world . . . and came back with enough kinetic force to deal crushing blows to the androids, but it wasn't quite enough to finish them. Samara and Raven combined their umbrakinetic abilities to tear numerous androids apart, and Slade and Ravager simply sliced them apart with their swords.

The remaining androids began fighting back with sonic weapons. Instead of channeling sound into blasts, they simply emanated sonic vibrations that nearly shattered the ears of their opponents. The vibrations were particularly harmful to Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, Slade, and Ravager due to their heightened senses. Mercury simply vibrated his molecules to a frequency that left him immune to the sonic vibrations, while Samara and Raven plugged their ears telekinetically.

The twins struggled to their feet, stalking toward the androids with painful determination. Before they could reach the androids, kunai flew at the androids, blocking their sonic emitters. With nowhere to escape to, the vibrations tore the androids apart.

Bladefire turned and saw Ravager smirking in spite of her pain.

"You . . . saved us," Inferno uttered in astonishment.

"I was saving myself," Ravager answered.

Mercury ran to Beast Girl. "You all right?"

Beast Girl looked up at Mercury, nodding in response. Mercury touched her gently and lent speed to her body's recovery system, healing her eardrums. He then ran to Inferno and did the same thing with him.

"Didn't know Samara wasn't the only doctor in the Tower," the pyrokinetic remarked.

"All I'm doing is accelerating your own body's healing processes," Mercury answered.

"Blood, you might as well show yourself, you filthy coward," Slade challenged.

"Deathstroke the Terminator," Brother Blood spoke as he materialized. "I almost thought I'd never get the chance to meet you."

"You sound flattered," Slade remarked.

"It'll pass," Brother Blood answered nonchalantly. He looked at the remains of his androids. "I designed them to be resistant to extremes of temperature and concussive forces of a certain level, but it appears I didn't plan for all of your abilities. Then again . . ." He looked at Beast Girl pointedly. ". . . I suppose some things can't be planned for."

Ravager slid a finger underneath the blank side of her mask and popped out a black lens, placing it in her belt. With the lens removed, her left eye – black with the purple triplicate spiral around her pupil – was exposed.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Nightstar asked.

"Hell Spiral," Brother Blood spoke. "I'm impressed that a mortal – even an enhanced mortal – like you was able to survive it. Now we'll see how well you can use it."

He charged Ravager with speed beyond anything human, only for Ravager to easily block his attack and toss him. Blood flipped and landed in a crouch.

"Not bad," Blood remarked. "You've already gotten the hang of dilated perception." He withdrew a kris from his robe.

"You expect to beat me with that?" Ravager asked derisively.

"Why, Ravager, it's not the size of the weapon . . . it's how you use it," Blood answered, extending the kris into a full-length sword.

Ravager drew her katana and she and Blood clashed swords. Blood was moving far faster than an ordinary human could follow, but Ravager wasn't having trouble at all. Not only did the Hell Spiral provide her with enhanced perception, its ability to see every possible immediate future in conjunction with her own precognitive skills enabled her to stay several steps ahead of him. She was just stringing him along.

"She's good," Mercury remarked.

Slade said nothing, but Raven and Samara could sense that he was nearly beaming with sadistic pride under the mask, looking forward to the damage she would do to Brother Blood.

"What's dilated perception?" Beast Girl asked.

"It's like what me, my dad, and the others like us are capable of," Mercury replied. "When we speed up, so do our perceptions of the world around us. When we're in that state of accelerated perception, everything is either really slow or just standing still from our viewpoint. We can even accelerate our perceptions without actually speeding up our bodies, so we can still do things faster than a normal person could."

"Oh," Beast Girl said.

"Excellent lesson, Mercury," Slade complimented with a dark smile underneath his mask. "I'll surely remember it when we face off in the future."

Mercury paled.

"What do you want with Samara?" Ravager asked as she continued battling Brother Blood.

"She will bring about the rebirth of Trigon," Brother Blood replied. "He will be reborn in her."

"And what do you have to do with that?" Ravager asked, evading a slash from Brother Blood's sword.

"It will be my seed that brings forth Trigon," Brother Blood answered in a tone full of cold menace. Those nine words horrified Ravager enough to throw off her concentration by a very small fraction . . . but even that was enough for Brother Blood to slip under her guard and slash her. The sword, mystically enchanted as it was, sliced through the polymerized titanium-leather mix of her suit and into more vulnerable flesh.

"Ravager!" Slade shouted, outraged by Blood's attack on his daughter. He drew his bastard sword and attacked the young man, who simply stopped him in his tracks with a web of scarlet flame. "_Blood!_ You'll burn for this!"

Of course, Slade's attack had proven to be a simple distraction, as Blood was pierced in his upper arm by a kunai from Ravager. Blood simply pulled the kunai out and smirked, the web of flames having dissipated since the pain of being pierced by the kunai distracted him from maintaining it.

"Not a bad maneuver," the malevolent youth complimented. "Faking concern for your daughter in order to draw my attention away from her while she healed. Not bad, Deathstroke, not bad."

Ravager said nothing, but the forlorn set of her mouth made Bladefire want to cry. It was only his tight grip on his emotions – far tighter than a Tamaranean, even a hybrid, ought to have – that prevented him from doing so. It also prevented him from flying over to comfort her, something he could not afford to do if he wanted to keep their relationship secret.

Not for the first time, the Tamaranean-human hybrid cursed himself for having learned too well the lessons of his father's "kin." Of course, there was a surefire way of burying his guilt and nascent self-hatred.

"Take him down," Bladefire ordered, materializing his energy sword and attacking Brother Blood along with the other Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager.

Inferno reached Blood first, quick, precise, and brutal strikes being made with fiery fists. Finally, Blood caught Inferno's fist and turned the pyrokinetic's flames against him, burning his own body as opposed to that of Trigon's herald. Inferno was forced to power down in order to save himself from being burned to the core.

"How . . . did he do that?" the firestarter wondered.

"Inferno," Samara said, at his side in an instant. "Are you . . . ?"

"I'll be fine, Samara," Inferno replied. "Just nail the bastard."

"Sure," Samara answered, passing the opportunity for a perverse joke. Now wasn't the time.

Nightstar, Bladefire, Slade, and Ravager joined together to fight Brother Blood, who blocked their weapons with his sword. With a burst of psychokinetic force, he pushed them away from him.

Beast Girl created a pillar from the earth and lunged toward it in a flying kick, attaching herself feet-first to the pillar and breaking it off to use as a traveling battering ram. Blood merely jumped on the pillar and slashed at Beast Girl with his sword. With animal reflexes, Beast Girl avoided the swing and scratched his face with her nails. Blood's eyes glared at her from within a blood-covered face and he sliced the pillar apart. Beast Girl took harpy form and manipulated the remains of the pillars to strike Trigon's herald.

Raven and Samara telekinetically manipulated traffic lights so that they bent and wrapped around Blood, binding him. Unfortunately, Blood teleported out of the twisted traffic lights and reappeared behind Samara.

"Nothing . . . will stop me," he whispered in her ear. "You won't. Your mother won't. Your friends won't. Deathstroke and Ravager won't. Even your aspiring lovers won't."

Suddenly, a shadowy tendril wrapped around Brother Blood's throat and pulled him away from Samara, choking him in the process.

"Wanna bet?" Leknaat asked with a cruel smirk on her doll-like face.

The Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager turned to confront Samara's "rescuer."

"No one else will have you except me, Samara," Leknaat spoke. "I will make sure of it by killing this fool who imagines himself Trigon's emissary."

"Unfortunately . . . I won't make it that easy for you," Blood hissed, teleporting away.

"Was it you who sent those monstrosities after Samara?" Ravager asked.

Leknaat looked shocked, very shocked. "That is nonsense. If I wanted to send lower creatures to retrieve Samara for me, I would have sent Shades." She extended a shadow tendril toward Ravager, sharpening it into a deadly stiletto that she held at the assassin's throat. "Ravager of the Hell Spiral, any demon that would send others to do the work of retrieving a desired consort is too cowardly for their station. And no one . . . _no one_ . . . calls me a coward."

"Your point's been made," Ravager said. "Get that thing away from my neck before I start pointing sharp objects at yours."

Leknaat retracted the shadow tendril.

"I rather like her," Slade whispered in Ravager's ear.

Raven aimed a fierce stare at Leknaat. "I've spent too long protecting Samara from the likes of you to let you near her."

Leknaat smiled threateningly. "Your desire to protect Samara is admirable; a good demon protects her offspring, after all. But don't think you can challenge me . . . not without much pain."

"Pain?" Raven echoed. "Spoken like someone very familiar with causing it."

"Put away your animosity, Raven," Leknaat said. "I offer a truce."

* * *

End Notes: I might as well end it here. It's another interesting cliffhanger for you all to hate me for.

First, Ravager's "Hell Spiral" was partly inspired by the Sharingan – the bloodline limit technique seen in three characters in the animé Naruto. However, a notable difference is that the Hell Spiral doesn't _copy_ enemy techniques, it simply _predicts_ them.

Second, there really is such a thing as a bastard sword. It's also known as a "hand and a half" sword due to the hilt being larger than necessary for one hand to hold. Of course, if you try to imagine Slade using it, imagine him wielding it with one hand just because he's stronger than normal.

Anyway, next chapter, when I get around to writing it will be full of even more demon action, some interesting alliances, and Samara taking charge . . . in a manner of speaking.

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this chapter.


	30. Blood: Stately Lover

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 4: "Blood"

Chapter 4: "Stately Lover"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, Slade, Ravager, Brother Blood, and Zatara II do not belong to me, either; all except Mercury are owned by DC Comics and Mercury is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. In addition, if you recognize anybody from the animated series or original comics, it's assured that they're not mine, either.

Author's note: If you want to see the resolution to that cliffhanger I left you with in the last chapter, you'll see it in this chapter. I'll admit, some of this chapter was inspired by my friend Darkmoon Knight's work "Scarlet Embrace," except I have demons and he has vampires. Check my Favorite Authors list in my profile and you'll find him there.

Moving on to the story itself, there will be a demon hunter from a rather well-known video game in it. Now, I haven't played the game myself, but I know the plot well enough. I just have to worry about getting his character right.

Now let's begin.

* * *

A week had passed since Leknaat had made her truce with Raven and the Titans. In that week, Jump City had become a war zone.

Demons rampaged through the Californian metropolis, killing each other and any human unlucky enough to cross their path.

In the sky, two demonic dragons did battle, one breathing fire and the other breathing cold. The fire-breathing dragon was colored black with crimson accents and golden eyes. The cold-breathing dragon was colored white with blue accents and pale blue eyes.

"The Granddaughter of Trigon will be mine!" the cold-breather roared.

"Never!" the fire-breather snarled. "She is mine!"

As the two dragons did battle, Nova Blue operatives on the rooftops below them looked up.

"What do you think?" an operative asked. "Let them waste each other, or do the wasting ourselves?"

"If we leave them to their own devices, they'll just kill somebody eventually," the leader replied, hoisting his rifle into the sky. "Take them both out."

"Yes, sir," the other operatives chorused, raising their rifles as well and opening fire on both dragons, who maneuvered through the air with surprising alacrity for beings of their size.

"Damn, they're fast!" an operative shouted.

"Keep shooting!" the leader ordered.

Theoretically, an entity with superior speed to his or her opponents should be able to defeat those opponents with ease. However, it had been proven again and again that superior speed wasn't always a match for superior numbers. After all, those superior numbers had more angles with which to fire at their target and the target couldn't evade them all forever.

Thus, the fire-breather was struck in the wing. He roared in outraged agony and breathed a stream of flames at the Nova Blue operatives, who were protected from the worst of it by their armor. The cold-breather flew away from the scene, sensing an opportunity, but the fire-breather followed him despite his injured wing, tackling him.

The dragons continued to wrestle, until the cold-breather tossed the fire-breather away with immense force. The fire-breather landed in the bay between Jump City and Titans Island, roaring in pain. Cold water was not a good thing for fire dragons, since it drastically reduced their body temperatures. A sufficiently long immersion tended to prove fatal.

The fire dragon shifted into a human form, leather-clad with wrappings around his upper arms and calves. A black mask covered the lower half of his face and a shock of white hair adorned his head.

Kiryu swam as fast as he could to Titans Island, desperately hoping that he could make it before the ice dragon did. He wasn't that lucky.

"Damn it," the draconic demon snarled as he redoubled his efforts.

By the time he made it, he was greeted by a seemingly young man with platinum blond hair and clad in a red coat.

"And who might you be, sunshine?" the red-clad young man asked.

"Get the hell out of my way," Kiryu snarled in response. "I have to get in there."

"You're after the girl, aren't you?" the young man deduced. "Sorry, but it's my job to make sure neither you nor any other demon gets to her."

"If that's the case, then you'd better kill that ice dragon and stop worrying about me!" Kiryu snarled, springing out of the water and charging at the ice dragon with his arm-blades extended.

The ice dragon turned to Kiryu and breathed waves of cold at him, but Kiryu dodged and slashed the ice dragon, who roared in pain.

"Let's see how you like that, _pk'tar,_" Kiryu spat.

The ice dragon would have responded with another attack, but the red-coated young man pulled out two guns and fired both at him. The ice dragon let out another agonized roar. Kiryu jumped up and impaled the ice dragon in the chest with his blades, descending to the ground while still keeping his blades in the ice dragon's chest.

The ice dragon fled as the Titans made their appearance, along with Raven, Slade, Ravager, and Leknaat.

"Not that we couldn't have handled him ourselves, but we wanted to see how you did before we took action," Slade greeted with menacing smoothness.

Kiryu snarled when he saw Leknaat.

"Relax, dragon," Leknaat sneered. "I haven't made Samara my consort yet."

Raven looked at Kiryu with a strong aura of disapproval and discontent.

"You're a dragon?" Samara asked.

"Yes," Kiryu replied. "This form is the form I take for interacting with those other than my kind."

"You wouldn't know a son of a bitch named Malchior, would you?" Raven asked acidly.

"We met once," Kiryu answered, "shortly before that bastard sorcerer Rorek imprisoned him. Good thing that spell took him out, too."

Raven didn't answer that. Instead, she turned to the red-coated young man.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Glad you asked, beautiful," the red-coated young man replied flirtatiously. "The name's Dante, demon hunter extraordinaire, at your service."

"How did you get here?" Nightstar asked.

"Ah, women," Dante remarked. "Always asking questions." He allowed himself a brief chuckle. "Actually, a friend of yours showed me the way. Dressed in a stage magician's outfit and acted kinda like a dick at random points."

"Zatara," Nightstar deduced.

Mercury sidled up to her and whispered, "Are you still pissed with him for breaking up with Avia?"

"Asshole broke her heart," Nightstar whispered back. "Of course I'm still pissed."

"We have other things to worry about right now," Bladefire said. "The demons are tearing Jump City apart in their quest to claim Samara."

"Don't I know it," Dante agreed. "I had to kill my way across the city to get here. Freaking slaughterhouse."

"You're half demon, aren't you?" Samara surmised.

"Yeah," Dante replied. "My dad was a legendary demon like your granddad, but for entirely different reasons."

"Such as?" Samara prompted.

"I actually recall a legend about a demonic warrior who was heretical enough to fight on behalf of humanity rather than against it like his brethren," Ravager interjected. "His name was Sparda, the Demon Knight. Would he be the father you speak of?"

"Yeah," Dante confirmed. "Anyway, you have any idea how we can get these demons to go back where they come from?"

"There's only one way they'll back off and that's if somebody claims Samara," Raven answered. "Unfortunately, I wouldn't let any of them near her, not when there's somebody else she's already interested in."

"You mean the firestarter?" Kiryu snarled jealously.

"How do you know?" Beast Girl asked.

"Because I've watched her," Kiryu hissed. "I see them together. He is unworthy of her, a weak mortal undeserving of the sublime perfection that is Samara. He will not be a good consort."

Before Inferno could protest, Samara spoke up.

"And what, pray tell, makes you think you'll be any better for me than Inferno?"

Kiryu merely stared at Samara, electric blue fire in his eyes.

"Can't answer, huh? That's ok; you've already given me my answer."

"I suggest we quit this insipid squabbling and come up with a plan to drive away these demons before one of them forces himself –" he aimed a pointed stare at Leknaat – "or herself on Samara," Slade cut in.

The Titans, Raven, Slade, Ravager, Leknaat, Kiryu, and Dante entered Titans Tower.

"Nice pad," Dante commented. "I wouldn't mind living here for a while."

"Glad you like it so much," Inferno answered.

"Hey, we got a call," Beast Girl said.

"Patch it through," Bladefire ordered.

Beast Girl answered the call, letting it come through the mainframe in audio format. "Hello, Titans Tower, Beast Girl speaking."

"Don't be cute with me," the voice of the police chief answered. "Where's Nightstar?"

"She's here," Nightstar said.

"In that case, I'd like you to come down to the police station for questioning," the chief responded.

"Sure," Nightstar conceded. "I'll be right there."

"You'd better be," the chief said before ending the call.

"What the hell was that about?" Dante asked.

"I'll find out when I get to the station," Nightstar replied.

* * *

Once she arrived at the police station, Nightstar was guided into the chief's office . . . for personal questioning.

"Why am I here?" Nightstar asked.

"You're here because I have the feeling that you Titans know more about these monsters attacking our city than you let on," the chief replied.

"What does that mean?" Nightstar asked.

"For the past week, this city has been invaded by monsters," the chief continued. "Regular people can't exit their homes anymore for fear of being butchered by those creatures. We've had to remove them from the city for their own safety; at least the ones that actually made it past those monsters. Nova Blue is doing everything they can, but whatever those creatures are, they're simply too strong, too resilient, and too numerous.

"Another thing I've noticed is the company you're keeping these days. Would a master criminal by the name of Slade ring any bells?"

"An alliance of necessity," Nightstar answered. "That's all I can say."

"I only hope he doesn't drag you down into his filth," the chief said. "Going back to our main topic, what do you know about these monsters?"

"What I know is that you're unequipped to handle them," Nightstar replied. "They aren't Plasmus or Cinderblock. They're far worse."

"What are they?" the chief inquired, impatience showing in her tone.

"There are some things you just aren't prepared to handle," Nightstar responded. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a city to defend."

The Titan leader stood up and departed the chief's office.

* * *

"So what happened?" Bladefire asked once Nightstar had returned.

"The chief thinks we know more than we're willing to tell, which in her eyes makes us at least partly responsible for what's happening," Nightstar answered.

"What did you tell her?" Dante asked.

"Nothing," Nightstar replied. "There are things in this world that normal humans aren't prepared to handle. I know that."

At that moment, Melchiah chose to make his appearance. Everyone present instantly took a fighting stance.

"Relax," the fallen angel spoke. "I'm not here to harm you. Only to help."

"Really?" Inferno asked suspiciously, letting his skin become wreathed in flames.

"To be honest, I could care less what happens to the humans of this city," Melchiah replied. "If I had my way, this entire planet would be nothing but a distant memory. Of course, the demons that are pillaging your precious city are after my future consort . . . and I cannot let that happen. Therefore, I lend you my assistance."

"Under the same condition I gave Leknaat, and this goes for you, too, Kiryu: You don't touch Samara," Raven stated. "The minute I even so much as sense one of you making a move on her, I will make it so that hell will look like heaven after your last moments on this plane. Got me?"

Melchiah just smirked. "You have my word, Raven. I will not lay a hand on your daughter. And I'll make sure that Leknaat and Kiryu behave themselves."

"Trying to get in good with your 'future' mother-in-law so that she'll be more open to letting you claim Samara?" Dante surmised sarcastically.

"There is the not-so-small matter of Brother Blood," Ravager interrupted. "He's still out there."

"Oh, that piddling mortal?" Leknaat asked contemptuously. "He ran from me."

"He's after Samara," Inferno replied. "You might want to take that seriously if you expect to be her consort."

"We need to cast a protection spell," Raven said. "A barrier around the Tower to prevent intruders of a supernatural nature from entering."

"Sounds good in theory," a familiar roguishly lilting voice spoke. "But you're forgetting one thing: You'll be locking out your allies as well as your enemies."

"Zatara," Nightstar greeted frostily.

"And a good evening to you, Nightstar," Zatara II answered.

"Already considered that," Raven said. "All I need is a drop of your blood and you can pass through the barrier without being harmed."

Beast Girl groaned. "Aw, man. Blood makes me squeamish."

"I'll get the microscope slides," Mercury said, speeding away and coming back with several microscope slides.

Raven calmly withdrew blood from Zatara II, Samara, Ravager, Dante, and the three demons, placing the drops on each slide. She withdrew blood from herself and placed the drop on the last slide before going outside to perform the spell.

For the next twenty minutes, the assembled group heard chants in Azarathian tongue.

"Is that the protection spell?" Mercury asked.

"Yeah," Zatara II replied.

"Cool," Mercury said.

Once the spell was over with, Raven reentered Titans Tower.

"Now we'll see whether it works," she said.

"How?" Beast Girl asked.

Slade pointed outside, drawing the Titans' attention to a legion of demons making their way to Titans Tower from the air. Kiryu left the Tower, prepared to fight.

"Doesn't he realize that I just cast a protection spell?" Raven asked.

"Yes," Samara replied. "He just wants an excuse to kill something."

Kiryu jumped to the top of Titans Tower and extended his arm-blades.

"Time to die," he growled. The blades glowed with hellfire and he swung them in twin arcs, creating waves of unholy flame that incinerated the entire demonic mass upon contact. Satisfied, he re-entered the Tower.

"The protection spell won't work," Ravager stated grimly.

"Why not?" Raven questioned with a dangerous look in her eye.

"Because we're doing nothing except hiding," Ravager answered. "And that won't work forever."

"It'll work until we come up with a plan for driving those demons away," Raven retorted.

"There's only one plan we know will work for sure and that's to let one of us claim her," Kiryu interposed.

"And what makes you think I'll let any of you touch her?" Raven asked acidly.

"You might change your mind within another week of those lower beasts rampaging through this city," Kiryu replied with an electric gleam in his blue eyes. "Think about it, Raven. Are you willing to let your precious humans die just to keep your daughter pure?"

A tense silence followed for what seemed like an eternity but was really only a minute or so at the most. Finally, Samara broke the silence.

"I'd sooner let this entire city burn than let any of you touch me," she spat, glaring at Kiryu, Leknaat, and Melchiah before warping through the floor and rematerializing in her own room.

Raven warped after her.

"We're protected inside the Tower," Bladefire said, "but Brother Blood is still out there. I say we find out where he's holed up."

"I need something of his," Zatara II said.

Ravager pulled out a bloody kunai. "How about this? Has his blood on it."

Zatara II took the blood-stained kunai and placed it on a table. He spoke in reverse.

"_Erehw si Rehtorb Doolb?_"

The kunai glowed and spun around before pointing outside the Tower, toward the northeast.

"All right, so he's that way," Nightstar concluded. "Zatara, recon."

"Sure thing," Zatara II answered. "Mind if I borrow your motorcycle? All that walking is gonna be a pain."

"Go ahead," Nightstar allowed. "Just don't get it scratched. I'll hurt you if it's scratched."

Zatara II just tipped his hat to her and winked mischievously at her before going to the vehicle bay and borrowing her motorcycle.

He came back about two hours later.

"The bastard's underground," he said. "Literally. I did manage to track him to a church. Church of Sebastian, to be precise. His lair must be underneath."

"That's a pretty good cover," Dante remarked. "Hiding a demon-worshipping sorcerer underneath a church."

* * *

Samara sat in her room, resisting the urge to cry. To think that this horror had happened – was happening – because she had fed from her best friend. Even now, she felt the bloodlust curling within her, ready to spring out of its cage and take control of her again.

"Samara?" Raven asked.

"I'm not all right, Mother," Samara replied. "In fact, I'm scared. I don't want them. They don't . . . love me. I scanned their emotions and never once did I feel any trace of affection for me. They just want to possess me . . . and I want someone who'll . . . love me."

Raven gently embraced her daughter.

"Who are you thinking of?" she asked.

Samara faintly blushed.

"It's Jeremiah," Raven deduced, a gentle smile on her face.

Samara nodded.

"You'll have to hurry if you want to claim him," she murmured gravely. "Our so-called allies won't wait for you to choose a consort forever. Eventually, one of them will lose their patience."

Samara nodded again. Raven kissed her gently on the forehead.

"Sleep well," the older of the two empathic part-demons whispered before warping back to join the Titans.

* * *

"It's late," Nightstar said back in the main room of Titans Tower. "We should get some sleep. Or rest, for those of you that might not necessarily need to sleep. A Titan will escort each of our 'guests' to a reserved room."

"How about escorting me?" Dante asked, flirtatiously grinning at the Titan leader.

"Sure, but if I catch your hand going somewhere it shouldn't be, I'm breaking it," Nightstar replied.

"I'll be good," Dante leered.

Nightstar groaned as she escorted Dante, the half-demonic demon slayer staying just a little behind her to check out her shapely posterior.

* * *

Meanwhile, Bladefire was escorting Ravager to her room, while Mercury escorted Slade to his room. The reason Mercury had been chosen to escort Slade was that the speedster could remain several steps ahead of the mastermind, provided the mastermind hadn't already planned out an attack. Bladefire had chosen to escort Ravager because of his experience in fighting her . . . and in the hidden corner of his mind, he was dying to embrace her again.

As soon as Ravager noticed that nobody was looking, she pulled Bladefire into her reserved room and began kissing him fiercely. Bladefire kissed her back just as passionately, a need burning in both their veins.

Bladefire pulled away to remove Ravager's mask and Ravager removed the tie binding his hair.

"I need you," she murmured.

They kissed again, this time on the bed, Bladefire on top of Ravager, the assassin moaning breathily as the half-Tamaranean kissed her throat.

* * *

Meanwhile, Inferno had finished his escort duty for Kiryu, who had done nothing but take potshots at him. The draconic demon's last words had stuck with the pyrokinetic.

"_You'll never be able to protect her."_

Inferno returned to his room and sighed, changing into a pair of sleeping pants. He looked out into the city, observing the carnage from far away.

"What a mess," he murmured. "What a freaking mess."

"Jeremiah?" Samara's voice asked.

"Samara?" Inferno asked.

"May I come in?" Samara asked.

"Sure," Inferno replied.

The door slid open and Samara entered. It was mostly dark, but there was just enough light for the pyrokinetic to discern her lack of clothing.

"Why are you naked?" Inferno asked.

"Because I've made my choice," Samara answered. "And I choose you."

"Me?" Inferno wondered.

"I can't have a consort I can't trust," Samara explained. "Kiryu, Leknaat, and Melchiah – I don't trust any of them. They don't actually care for me; they just want to possess me. I don't want to be a possession; I want to be loved."

"You already are," Inferno whispered softly.

"I know," Samara whispered. "That's why I chose you."

"Do you . . . love me?" Inferno questioned, anticipating and fearing the answer simultaneously.

"Yes," Samara replied.

"Lights at forty percent," Inferno spoke, and the lights in his room came on, somewhat dim but enough for him to see that his best friend and consort-to-be was definitely nude.

The partly demonic empath closed the distance between them and kissed the pyrokinetic, the first kiss of her choosing and the pyrokinetic's first kiss ever.

* * *

End Notes: All right, I don't need to spell out what's going to happen; you older readers ought to know what happens when a naked girl shows up in a guy's bedroom.

If you play or heard of the _Devil May Cry_ game series, you certainly might recognize Dante. Why is he here in 2031? Considering that he's half demon, one could easily figure that his demon blood would give him an extended lifespan and he'd still be able to kick a lot of ass.

For those of you who are action-starved, there will be plenty of it in the next chapter, which will most likely be my final one for this arc. After that, it's a few standalones and then there's the next arc, which will introduce the Titans East of 2031! Look forward to it!

Meanwhile, you're free to tell me what you thought of this chapter, good or bad.


	31. Blood: Entwined

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 4: "Blood"

Chapter 5: "Entwined"

Disclaimer: Neither Teen Titans nor Devil May Cry belongs to me; the former is owned by DC Comics and Warner Brothers and the latter is owned by Capcom. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, Brother Blood, Slade, Ravager, Raven, Zatara II, and Dante are not mine, either; all but Mercury and Dante are owned by DC Comics while Mercury is jointly owned by DC and Marvel and Dante is owned by Capcom.

Author's note: The end is nigh. Yeah, we're pretty much there, anyway, but I have one more chapter to write – this one. After that, the story's more or less done. Anyway, you're going to see lots of demon action and a scene reminiscent of part 2 of "The End." Enjoy.

* * *

Inferno woke up the next morning and the first thing he noticed was a very warm body curled up beside him. A cursory look revealed that it was Samara, her sleeping face fixed in an expression of bliss.

He looked down at himself and saw the "S"-shaped seal on his left pectoral. He smiled slightly, remembering that it was Samara's seal, the seal that marked him as her consort.

_Last night was a whirlwind,_ he thought. He found his face heating up, even now, at the memory of the things she had done to him with just her mouth and tongue. Of course, he had taken the opportunity to ravish her in some rather creative ways, particularly where his pyrokinetic abilities had come into play. Thank God – or Azar – for fireproof bedclothes.

Samara had told him, when they were taking a brief break from the activities of last night, that her seal had altered his physiology – a necessity for a human (even one with residual alien genes) to survive sex with a demon (even one who was mostly human). So far, that had manifested as increased stamina, which was a good thing considering how demanding the partly demonic girl was.

"How was she?" Raven's voice asked.

Inferno jumped up and out of bed, springing into a defensive position instantaneously despite his lack of clothing.

"Good reflexes," Raven remarked.

"Raven!" the pyrokinetic exclaimed. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Couldn't resist," Raven said. "Thought I'd come by and check on my daughter's new consort. It seems the binding seal's enhancements are already working."

"Well, yeah . . ." Inferno murmured, not wanting to confess just how those enhancements had been used.

"It's not like I don't know what you two were up to," Raven said. "Samara's a screamer. Gets it from me."

"I'm surprised you're being this open with me," Inferno admitted.

"You're her consort now," Raven spoke. "By demon law, that makes you two married and that makes us in-laws. You're part of the family now."

Inferno put a hand behind his head and chuckled nervously.

"It's both a relief and kind of scary that you're so accepting of this," he said.

"It wasn't a decision either of you entered into lightly," Raven stated. "Besides, you're good for each other."

Just then, the door was sliced open by a fiery blade.

"She chose you," Kiryu spat, glaring at Inferno with hellish fury.

"What, jealous?" Inferno asked coolly. "And don't try to tell me you could have done better. You heard the same thing everyone else heard last night and that wasn't faking."

Kiryu snarled. "Get dressed and come with me."

"Anytime," Inferno answered in challenge, walking over to his wardrobe and pulling out the containment suit he usually wore to battle. After changing into it, he scribbled a brief note to Samara explaining where he'd gone, adding a brief postscript saying, "If I don't come back, you know what happened."

He followed Kiryu out of Titans Tower.

* * *

"She's changed you," Kiryu spoke. "Do you understand the full extent of those changes?"

"I've got more stamina and better reflexes, not to mention that I feel stronger," Inferno answered.

"That's part of it," Kiryu said. "Furthermore, since you're now part demon, I can teach you pyromancy."

"Pyromancy?" Inferno echoed. "I already have pyrokinesis."

"Pyrokinesis is the scientific aspect of fire control," Kiryu stated. "Pyromancy is the magic of flames, a magic that encompasses far more than what you're accustomed to. I can teach you new ways of controlling fire, and you'll need to learn, if you want to fight Blood and stand a chance."

"Why are you doing this?" Inferno asked.

"I need to know that Samara is in safe hands," Kiryu replied. "I need to know that her consort is someone that can protect her."

"She doesn't need protection," Inferno retorted. "She's not helpless."

"True," Kiryu admitted. "Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes," Inferno answered.

"One important thing you need to learn is fire morphing," Kiryu stated, "the ability to shape fire – either the fire you create or flames caused by others – into anything you can imagine."

"Like a Green Lantern?" Inferno asked.

"Yes, if you want to use that example," Kiryu replied. He generated a fireball . . . and shaped it into the image of a dragon. "You try. Imagine whatever you want and try to mold your flame into that image."

Inferno thought of Samara, concentrating on her image, summoning from memory every detail of her face and body. He pulled more and more flame out, molding it into a mirror image of Samara. However, he had no sooner formed the fiery image of Samara than it disappeared.

"You're straining yourself too much," Kiryu said. "And besides, that's too complex a construct for you right now. Try something simpler."

Inferno molded his fire again, this time into the shape of a spider web.

"Now we're going to try something else," Kiryu moved on. "Hard-flame constructs."

"Hard-flame?" Inferno echoed. "As in making fire solid?"

"Yes," Kiryu confirmed. "It's really not that much different from the hard-light constructs used by Green Lanterns and it's a more advanced form of fire morphing. Not only are you shaping fire; you're making it into a solid object, which is good for when you're in melee combat."

Kiryu demonstrated by molding his flame into the image of a sword. He concentrated further and that fiery sword hardened into a red-orange facsimile of an actual broadsword, looking every bit as sharp as the genuine article.

"What do you call that?" Inferno asked.

"Hard-flame, remember?" Kiryu replied. "You try."

Inferno concentrated on forming a sword out of his flames and then on making it solid.

"Got it," he gasped out. He flexed his fingers around the hard-flame sword, surprised at the warmth and solidness of the construct.

"And now that you can make a weapon out of your flames, it's time to learn how to use it," Kiryu said, charging at Inferno to attack. Inferno reacted instantly, raising his own sword to block. Kiryu slashed again, but Inferno dodged and slashed at him, a slash that Kiryu easily dodged. "Hack and slash. How pedestrian."

"Excuse me for not being an expert in sword technique," Inferno retorted as he swung at Kiryu again. This time, Kiryu deflected Inferno's swing and materialized another hard-flame sword, slashing him with that.

"I have an idea," Kiryu said.

"What?" Inferno asked.

"You combust yourself into a fiery state when you go into battle," Kiryu answered. "Why not try making yourself a hard-flame construct?"

"Like armor?" Inferno deduced.

"Exactly," Kiryu confirmed. "Try it."

Inferno powered up into his fiery state, willing the flame covering his skin to harden.

"Not bad," he spoke.

This training went on for most of the day, both in fire control and in demonic combat styles. Once night fell, Kiryu smiled underneath his mask.

"I'm going to teach you something else," the draconic assassin said.

"Such as?" Inferno asked.

"How to see into the infrared spectrum," Kiryu replied. "If you can detect heat with your eyes, you'll be able to track others . . . unless they're vampires."

"Ha, ha, very funny," Inferno retorted.

"Concentrate on the heat," Kiryu said. "Concentrate on seeing it."

Inferno did exactly that, focusing solely on the heat around him. Suddenly, his vision shifted; instead of perceiving light to see as most creatures did, he was perceiving heat. He saw Kiryu as a humanoid mass of heat and when he looked into Titans Tower, he saw the beings inside as similar masses of heat.

"Whoa," he uttered once he shifted his vision back to normal.

"I think it's time we returned to the others," Kiryu said. "Samara is most likely missing you."

"I'm missing her, too," Inferno admitted.

The two entered Titans Tower.

* * *

"The demons have left," Nightstar said. "Must have sensed that Samara had already chosen her consort."

"Binding seals are extremely difficult to remove," Leknaat said. "Even if you cut off the skin, it'll just regenerate and the seal will be right there."

"We still have Blood to worry about," Bladefire said. "He will most likely not be persuaded to back down so easily. After all, he's not a demon."

"We'll take care of him," Nightstar responded to her twin. She turned to Mercury. "Can you do a recon of that church where Blood is hiding out?"

Mercury sped away and returned only a few minutes later. He went to the mainframe and accessed a drawing program, which he used to recreate the layout of Blood's base.

"Is that it?" Samara asked.

"Yeah," Mercury replied.

"When do we strike, O fearless leader?" Beast Girl asked.

"Yeah, I'm itching to kick some ass," Dante added.

A feral smile graced Nightstar's features.

"Now."

"I hope Kiryu's training helped," Bladefire said to Inferno, "because you're going to need it."

* * *

The Titans and their allies of the occasion made their way to Brother Blood's base in their own ways. Those that could fly flew, those that could run with superhuman speed ran, and the others used vehicular transportation . . . except for Leknaat, who warped through the shadows.

"Looks like there's a service going on," Mercury observed.

"Holograms," Inferno clarified.

"How do you know?" Mercury asked.

"I can see in infrared," Inferno replied. "And those 'people' are not emitting any kind of heat, so they're obviously holograms."

"Then we go in," Nightstar said.

They moved in like a small but deadly army, Mercury and Zatara II leading the way. It didn't take long for Blood's droids arrived to intercept them.

"_Kaerb,_" Zatara II spat and the droids shattered into a million pieces.

They continued through, encountering more numerous droids.

"Well, aren't we in a fine mess?" Ravager remarked with a feral smirk, drawing her twin katana swords. Beside her, Slade drew his bastard sword.

One of the droids attacked . . . and got its head sliced off by Slade. Another droid attacked Ravager, who smoothly dodged and sliced it in half.

Nightstar extended her energy whip, slicing through several droids at once. Bladefire extended a dual-bladed energy sword and began tearing droids apart with it.

At some point, the Grayson twins ended up next to Slade and Ravager.

"Only a minor setback," Slade remarked coolly. "Nothing old friends can't handle."

"We're _not friends!_" Nightstar roared, nonetheless flipping into the air and using Slade's shoulders as a springboard to launch into an attack on several more droids, energy wire lashing out everywhere and slicing apart any droid it touched. Slade and Bladefire teamed up to slice through a seemingly endless array of droids. Ravager somersaulted and spun into a vicious slash attack that cut through more droids. She threw her swords at two droids, impaling both of them. She proceeded to jump into the air, Bladefire catching her hands with his and launching her at the droids that had gathered near the ones "slain" by her. Ravager reclaimed her swords from the dead mechanical husks in which she had impaled them and used them to tear through the droids.

Meanwhile, Beast Girl was ripping droids apart with molten energy attacks while Mercury detonated them by impaling them with vibrating hands. Inferno battered droids while in armored flame state and resorted to slicing through the ones he couldn't beat down with a hard-flame sword. Samara used her telekinesis as a battering ram, while Raven pushed it inside the droids and tore them apart from within.

Zatara II moved about the battlefield simply commanding droids to break and break they did. Dante pulled out his twin guns and shot the droids in the head. The three demons attacked the droids in their own ways, Kiryu and Melchiah cutting through them with their blades and Leknaat crushing them in shadows.

Nightstar and Ravager ran at the droids together and began cutting through them, moving oddly in sync with each other. Bladefire and Slade, while not pausing for a single moment in their own attacks, took the time to observe this, Bladefire with a bemused look in his eyes and Slade with dark amusement glittering in his eye.

Ravager grabbed Nightstar's wrists, letting the younger girl use her as leverage to flip into an attack on the droids behind her, smashing them with her feet and fists. The assassin watched Nightstar's back, slicing apart the droids coming at them.

"Doesn't this feel right?" she asked the Tamaranean-human hybrid with a smirk.

"It's only an alliance of necessity," Nightstar answered coldly. "There is nothing _right_ about it."

The two young women somersaulted past each other, uncurling into fierce kicks that smashed two more droids.

Dante put his guns away and drew a sword, using it to cut through the droids.

Leknaat morphed into a liquid shadow and slithered inside a droid, slipping in between its servos and bursting it apart just by expanding inside it.

"Ever do that to a person?" Dante wondered.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Leknaat answered with a smirk.

Finally, the droids were all destroyed.

"Did you think your droids would be sufficient?" Slade asked. "I know you're here, Blood. Show yourself, you brat, or would you prefer we come to you?"

"I'm impressed," Brother Blood stated. "Then again, I probably shouldn't have sent an army after you. Cannon fodder effect, you see." He looked at Inferno and Samara and his eyes glowed with jealous rage.

"Anytime you are," Inferno challenged, molding the flames wreathing his skin into hard armor.

"Hard-flame," Blood observed. "You've learned a few tricks."

"You don't know the half of it," Inferno answered, as the two fire users attacked each other. Blood attempted to turn Inferno's flames against him, but to his shock, it didn't work.

"What?" Blood uttered in shock.

"That won't work on me anymore," Inferno replied. He smirked. "You call yourself a real pyromancer? I'll show you pyromancy – starting now."

Inferno disappeared . . . and reappeared behind Brother Blood, chopping him hard in the back of his neck. Blood staggered and shot crimson flame at Inferno, who skidded out of the way and spun into a kick that knocked the sorcerer for a loop.

"You're . . . stronger," Blood gasped out.

"And faster, too," Inferno added, vanishing and reappearing in the sorcerer's face, striking him right in the mouth and knocking him into a wall.

"I'll drink your blood!" Brother Blood screamed.

"Sorry, but when I'm like this, my blood isn't a safe drink," Inferno quipped.

Brother Blood sent a wave of fire through the ground, which Inferno jumped off, somersaulting into a kick that penetrated Blood's wall of flames.

"When did Inferno get that badass?" Mercury asked, awestruck by his fiery teammate's prowess.

Kiryu chuckled. "That's what happens when someone is trained by me."

Blood caught Inferno's ankle just as the other fire user was about to kick him again and twisted. Inferno twisted with him and into a kick with his other leg, striking him in the head.

"Can't even touch me, huh?" Inferno commented.

"I'm . . . more powerful than you think," Blood snarled, shaping his flame into a spider web that trapped Inferno. To his shock, Inferno simply absorbed the fiery web . . . and released it in the form of hard-flame spiked knuckles.

Fire swirled around Inferno.

"Give it up, Blood," he said. "Your tricks are useless against me."

Blood lunged at Inferno, who simply punched him, the knuckles tearing his flesh. The demon worshipper willed it to heal, sweeping his leg out into a low kick that Inferno jumped over, striking him again. Brother Blood grabbed the pyrokinetic's leg and tossed him, but the pyrokinetic bounced off the wall and lunged for another strike. This time, Blood caught it and to Inferno's surprise, the hard-flame shell that covered his skin began to crack and flake off, revealing dusky flesh underneath.

"You're not the only fire absorber here," Blood snarled, the flakes of hard-flame igniting into light and heat again and being drawn into him.

Inferno kicked him off, but by then, part of his face and left arm were uncovered. The pyrokinetic simply shattered the rest of his hard-flame armor, reshaping it into a sword. Brother Blood created a hard-flame chain, connecting him and Inferno.

"What's this?" Inferno asked.

"Let's see how well you fight when there's only so far you can go," Brother Blood challenged, using the chain to yank Inferno toward him. Inferno leveraged himself into a slash with his sword, which Blood blocked with his own saber. The two clashed swords, parrying and blocking each other's attacks.

Inferno ran around Blood, attempting to ensnare him in the chain, but the sorcerer used this to tangle them both together. Inferno chopped the chain, breaking it and absorbing the flames. He spun into a sword strike, but Blood parried it and kicked him.

"He's handling himself very well," Slade observed.

Samara glared at Slade. "Don't even think about it."

Slade chuckled, never once taking his eye off Inferno as the pyrokinetic did battle with Brother Blood.

To Inferno's surprise, Blood suddenly shot a blast of black fire at him.

"What was that?" Inferno asked.

"Black hellfire," Blood replied. "What you saw me use before was red hellfire."

"Um, what's the difference between red hellfire and black hellfire?" Mercury asked.

"Red hellfire is your standard hellfire," Raven replied. "Black hellfire is hellfire combined with dark energy, a rather dangerous combination at that."

Inferno slammed his fingers into the wall behind him and channeled his fire through the walls, letting it form a circuit that attacked the sorcerer.

"Not bad, Inferno," Blood remarked, his body smoking from that prior attack. "You just might be worthy of the title pyromancer after all."

Inferno's only answer was a swift charge and a hard strike using just his index and middle fingers. Blood gasped in pain.

"Was that some kind of nerve strike?" Nightstar asked.

"In a way," Zatara II replied. "You see, magic is supposed to flow through the body and it is released via certain pathways. That strike just closed one of those pathways, so that increases the burden of releasing magic for the other pathways. The more pathways close, the more burdened the remaining pathways become, and they can only release so much magic at once. Eventually, he'll either have to stop tapping into his magic or he'll explode from the strain of releasing it through ever-increasingly fewer pathways."

"Your training was certainly thorough," Brother Blood growled, "but you're not the only one who can do that." He shot forth with a burst of speed, striking Inferno just below his rib cage, leaving the younger pyromancer coughing up blood. The demon worshipper followed up the strike with another blast of black hellfire.

"Why would magic nerve strikes work on Inferno?" Beast Girl asked.

"Because he's a magic user now himself," Dante replied. "Magic users aren't always spell-casters, but everyone mixes the two up. If you harness magic for whatever abilities you possess, you're a magic user and thus subject to both the perks and the drawbacks."

"This has been a fun little game, Inferno, but you're in my way," Brother Blood stated. "Time for me to remove you."

With a burst of psychokinetic force, he caved in the ground below himself, Inferno, and everyone else present.

"The _hell?_" Dante uttered. "Is he freaking insane?"

"That's a stupid question," Raven answered.

"Oh, sure, you're all calm about it," Dante retorted as they plummeted, "you can fly."

Beast Girl transformed into a pterodactyl, letting Mercury land on her back. Nightstar and Bladefire caught Slade and Ravager, while Zatara II and Dante landed on Beast Girl. Leknaat dove into a shadow and reemerged safely on the ground, while Melchiah and Kiryu flew. Inferno and Samara caught themselves in midair, the former via superheating the air around him and Samara via telekinesis.

Brother Blood, on the other hand, landed in a pool of blood beneath them.

"What the hell was that?" Bladefire asked.

"Demon blood," Slade replied. "He's probably trying to amplify his own power so that he can kill your fiery comrade."

Brother Blood emerged from the blood pool minutes later, his eyes glowing a horrible crimson.

"Inferno. You're going to die. Any last words?"

"Yeah . . . burn."

Instantly, the Titan pyromancer ignited his body into its fiery state and those flames lashed out at Brother Blood, who merely deflected them.

"What?"

Blood smiled sinisterly. "I have bathed in the blood of the dark gods. Do you think you can defeat me now?"

"Yes."

"You fool."

"Maybe."

Blood's hands ignited, crimson-and-black flame surrounding them. He charged at Inferno and began slashing at him with his burning hands. Inferno dodged and lashed back with hard-flame twin swords. Blood simply broke them with his burning hands.

"I see how it's going to be now. Fisticuffs, huh? We can do that."

Inferno blocked Blood's attacks as best as he could, while striking back with swift, precise blows aimed at the pathways where his body channeled his magic. Unfortunately, Blood kept avoiding Inferno's blows and striking Inferno at many of the same points the Titan pyromancer had targeted him. It was now becoming more difficult for Inferno to form his flames and use them to attack, but he would not give in.

Inferno launched himself into a fiery tornado kick, repeatedly striking Brother Blood. He spun himself into a burning tornado and flew at the sorcerer, constantly striking him in midair. Finally, Brother Blood sent Inferno into a wall with a hard strike to one of his channeling pathways.

"You're going down," Samara snarled, attacking Brother Blood with shadow-formed blades. Blood simply dissipated the blades with a thought. "How did you do that?"

"I'm part of you," Blood answered. "You can't attack me."

"Wanna bet?" Samara challenged, catching Blood in an umbrakinetic field and throwing him around the chamber. Unfortunately, Blood dissipated it like he did to her blades.

"You will be mine," Blood declared. "And Trigon will be reborn through you."

"Never," Samara vowed. "I won't let that happen."

"You won't have a choice," Blood answered.

"Didn't you hear her?" Dante asked, having withdrawn his sword from its sheath. "She said no."

"Half-breed," Blood addressed him. "You think you can fight me?"

"Actually, yes," Dante replied cockily. "What's the matter, you kook, scared?"

Blood looked at Dante's sword. "Sparda, named after the demonic warrior who wielded it. You really take after your father, don't you?"

Dante's answer was to charge Brother Blood, lightning crackling around him and Sparda. Blood was about to cut through Sparda with his burning hands, but Dante moved faster than he did and slashed him, lightning trailing the blade.

"That hurt, you big baby?" the platinum-blond half-demon asked.

"I'll show you hurt," Blood snarled in answer, a projection of telekinetic force knocking Dante back. The half-demon simply turned his unwilling backward flight into a somersault and landed safely on the ground. Before Dante could attack again, Leknaat became liquid shadow once more and lunged at Brother Blood, wrapping herself around him and creeping toward his mouth.

"Open wide," she purred, squeezing to make him cry out in pain. She took the opportunity to pour herself into his mouth, burrowing into his body until she was in his lungs, in his throat, in his stomach, in his intestines, and in his veins. To her shock, he concentrated his telekinesis inward, forcing her out through his available orifices – mainly his mouth. Leknaat was left a lump of liquid shadow.

"That was freaking gross," Mercury commented. Beside him, Beast Girl was merely greener than she already was.

"I think I need a drink to wash that wench's taste out of my mouth," Brother Blood commented. He grinned savagely at Samara, his fangs showing.

As soon as the sorcerer made his move, Melchiah and Kiryu were on him with their respective bladed weapons. Blood merely threw them aside telekinetically.

"I don't have time for you," he snarled.

The Titans, Raven, Slade, Ravager, and Zatara II formed a protective barrier around Samara, ready to prevent Blood from getting to her. Unfortunately for them, he was powered not only by his magic but also by a psychotic determination that made him insanely strong. Not one of them was able to hold him back for long. Not even a hyperkinetic attack from Mercury or a concentrated fire assault from Inferno could slow him down.

"_What is he?_" Nightstar asked in horror as even she was thrown aside by Brother Blood.

Raven threw up a telekinetic barrier, but Blood simply punched through it, generating a psychic backlash that nearly fried her mind.

"Mother!" Samara exclaimed.

"Now, now, Samara," Blood whispered in a falsely soothing voice. "Stay still. It won't hurt for long."

"Stay _away_ from me!" Samara yelled, her eyes glowing white as she generated a burst of psychokinetic power to throw the demon worshipper back. Like the others' efforts, hers proved ultimately futile.

Blood grabbed her and bent down to bite her. Unfortunately for him, a darkish red hand grabbed his shoulder and brutally tossed him into a wall.

_What was that?_ Samara wondered, looking at her mysterious rescuer, demon-winged, horned, and covered in reddish black armored hide.

"The one and only Dante," the reddish-black demon replied. "I just decided to stop messing around."

"Son of Sparda, you will not stand in my way," Brother Blood snarled.

"Hate to tell you this, Bloody, but you're not that tough," Dante answered. "You had to take a dip in demon blood to juice yourself up. Weak."

"I'll show you who's weak!" Brother Blood snarled, charging Dante with the intent of finishing him off. Dante looked at him with a bored expression and impaled him with Sparda.

"And here I thought you'd be a challenge," Dante remarked. "Maybe I shouldn't have used my Devil Trigger."

Blood glared at Dante with helpless rage, knowing full well that his impalement was a fatal blow.

"I'd kill you right now, but I'll let Sammy do that," Dante said.

Samara glared at him. "Never call me that again."

"Sorry, babe," Dante said.

"Don't call me that, either," Samara stated.

"Make it quick," Dante said. "Unlike a lot of demons, I'm not into drawn-out deaths."

Samara pulled Sparda out of Blood and used it to decapitate the sorcerer in one swift motion.

* * *

The next day, the Titans congregated back at Titans Tower. Everyone else had returned to whence they came – Zatara II going back to Sacramento, Dante going back to his private investigation firm Devil May Cry, the demons going back to their respective regions of hell, and Slade and Ravager going wherever it was they holed up whenever they were plotting something.

Raven had gone, too, but not before giving her blessing to Samara and Inferno.

"That was rough," Mercury commented.

"Yeah," Nightstar agreed. "The fight with Blood took a lot out of all of us. But he's gone now."

"Yeah, and since you two are now consorts, the demon community will leave you alone," Bladefire added, addressing Samara and Inferno.

"That's a good thing," Inferno said. "I don't know if I'm ready to go through all that again."

"Why not?" Samara asked. "You were certainly hurting Brother Blood before he took that blood dive."

"Yeah," Inferno agreed. "But I'm gonna need a lot of practice. You'll help me, right?"

"Yeah," Samara answered. "That's what lovers do. And speaking of what lovers do . . ."

Inferno blushed.

* * *

End Notes: And this is where this arc ends. I hope you enjoyed it.

To be honest, I don't have that much to say on it, except I could have created an OC as a demon hunter character, but I wanted to use Dante, so consider that a mini-crossover of sorts. Speaking of mini-crossovers, a future standalone will see the Titans go to Japan and meet Public Security Section 9 from the manga/animé Ghost in the Shell. It only works because this story and Ghost in the Shell are in roughly the same era. Look forward to it.

Also, the future Titans East will be appearing in the next arc. Look forward to that as well.

If you're wondering why Raven was so calm about Inferno being in bed with Samara, this is Raven we're talking about here. I doubt she'd have the same hang-ups as most humans and I also wanted to portray her as having gained enough emotional control to make light of the situation somewhat.

"Hard-flame" was inspired by my pal Darkmoon Knight's OC Ifrit over in his story Teen Titans: Inferno. Read it; it's actually very good.

Anyway, see you soon and tell me what you think, good or bad.


	32. Side Story 11: Ghost

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 11: "Ghost"

Disclaimer: Neither Teen Titans nor Ghost in the Shell belongs to me, the former being the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers and the latter being the property of Masamune Shirow. The only Titans depicted in this story that I didn't create are Nightstar and Mercury, the former being a creation of Mark Waid and Alex Ross for DC Comics and the latter being joint property of DC and Marvel and also created by Mark Waid. The villain of the story will be a character viewers of the TV series will be familiar with, only revamped into more of a threat.

Author's note: I've wanted to see what would happen if the characters from Ghost in the Shell met the future Titans. It's entirely possible, seeing as Ghost in the Shell takes place in 2029, 2030, and 2032 – and this story is set in roughly the same period. Continuity-wise, I'm drawing upon Stand Alone Complex, since I've watched enough episodes of both 1st GIG and 2nd GIG to be more familiar with that version of GITS continuity. Since it is now 2031 in the continuity of this story, it'll be set between 1st GIG and 2nd GIG.

As for the story itself, it's inspired by the recent Trouble in Tokyo feature, but I'm taking it in a different, not-quite-as-lighthearted direction. Anyway, I've talked enough and now it's time for me to write. Hope you like.

* * *

It had been a week since the demonic invasion of Jump City and the city was still being rebuilt. The rebuilding was going faster than expected, and mainly because the Titans were assisting in the reconstruction. Inferno's increasingly refined fire control abilities had enabled him to weld beams with ease, while the other Titans' abilities had suited them for the more physical aspects of the reconstruction.

After the day was over, the Titans observed their handiwork.

"It's looking better than it was yesterday," Inferno commented.

"I still can't help but feel that this was my fault," Samara murmured ruefully. "If I hadn't –"

Inferno wrapped an arm around Samara. "You don't need to feel guilty. It wasn't your fault that a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters saw fit to hack through anything in their way trying to get to you."

"Besides, if you look at the glass half full, the construction companies can make a lot of money," Mercury remarked.

"Let's go home and get some rest before patrol," Nightstar said.

* * *

The Titans did exactly that, only to receive an unpleasant surprise once they stepped inside the Tower. A loud clang alerted them to their situation, specifically, the loud clang of the Tower being sealed off.

"Quarantine protocol!" Bladefire exclaimed in shock. "Who's doing this?"

"I don't know, but we're getting out of here," Nightstar answered, attempting to slice through the barrier with her energy whip. Unfortunately, the barrier proved extremely resistant to her efforts.

Mercury charged the barrier and attempted to vibrate through, only to be electrocuted.

Panels in the walls peeled back to release silver spheres into the main room, spheres that split open to reveal miniature gun barrels. Those same spheres began shooting lasers at the Titans, who proceeded to either dodge or shield themselves in some way. Nightstar and Bladefire attempted to use their bracers to block the lasers, only for their forearms to be painfully burned. Samara raised a telekinetic force field to block the lasers, but the lasers burned through the shield and struck her in the midriff.

"Samara!" Inferno shouted, racing to her as he evaded the lasers.

Mercury was in complete overdrive, dodging the lasers to the best of his ability – but light was hard to dodge even for a speedster.

Beast Girl was making herself as small a target as possible, shifting into small, quick animals to evade the lasers, but the lasers kept following her.

Nightstar made her way to one of the computer sets that accessed the mainframe and tried to use it. To her shock, she couldn't, eliciting a Tamaranean curse from her.

"We're locked out!" she yelled over the laser fire.

"Who's doing this?" Inferno asked.

"Gotta be a hacker, but who'd be able to break into our computers?" Mercury asked.

"Ravager got past our security once; she could do it again," Bladefire replied.

"Yeah, but I don't think she'd attack us like this," Beast Girl said.

"She's working for Slade," Nightstar spoke tersely. "Whatever he wants, she'd do."

Bladefire schooled his face into an expressionless demeanor.

Nightstar slipped on the headset, using her mind to "dive" into the mainframe. She "saw" glowing electrical worms all over the gateway into the mainframe. She materialized her energy whip and sliced at the worms, knocking them off the gateway and cutting them into pieces.

"_Emergency override password requested,_" a computerized female voice spoke.

"_Coriander,_" Nightstar answered.

"_Access granted,_" the voice stated and Nightstar dove completely into the mainframe. She quickly began marshalling her computer skills – such as they were – into restoring the firewalls that the mystery hacker had torn down to get into the Titans Tower mainframe. Once she was certain the hacker was locked out, she rose back into the real world.

"Thanks," Inferno said, "but some of us will need medical help."

Nightstar looked around and saw Samara with tears in the mesh midriff of her costume and burn marks caused by the laser blasts, as well as Beast Girl with similar marks in the parts of her body left exposed by her uniform. The others didn't look so bad, having been protected by their clothes, their powers, or their unique physiologies.

Samara went to Beast Girl and placed her hands on the wounds left by the laser blasts, channeling her energy into the wounds to heal them.

"Thanks," Beast Girl said.

"You're welcome," Samara answered, proceeding to concentrate her healing energies on herself.

"Or maybe we won't be needing medical help," Inferno mused to himself. Aloud, "Who was it that tried to kill us with our own mainframe?"

"I'm looking," Bladefire replied. "On the one hand, it could be Slade and Ravager. On the other hand, it could be someone else. Someone smart enough to get into our mainframe . . ."

". . . and dumb enough to try to waste us with it," Beast Girl finished.

Just then, a message came for the Titans. Bladefire answered it and the image of Barbara Gordon-Grayson appeared on the screen.

"Oracle," Bladefire spoke.

"I wanted to see if you were all right," Oracle said. "Someone broke into my computer network."

"What a coincidence," Nightstar drawled. "Someone broke into our mainframe."

"We're not the only ones who've been hit," Oracle went on. "Bruce's network was also hit, and so was the Justice League Watchtower network. Even Olivia got hit."

"How's that possible?" Mercury asked.

"It wasn't just Olivia's body that was cyberized; part of her brain was also cyberized and that was how she was attacked," Oracle explained.

"Do you have any idea who's doing this?" Samara asked.

"We've managed to trace the hacker to Niihama," Oracle replied. "That was as far as we got before we were blocked. There's something else you need to know about this person. Whoever it is, the hacker community has been saying that the person may not even be human."

"You mean a robot is doing this?" Beast Girl asked.

"No," Oracle answered. "More like a cyberpathic ghost."

"An AI gone rogue and rampaging through cyberspace as nothing but binary given sentience?" Inferno surmised. "Sounds dangerous."

"You have no idea," Oracle stated. "The Steel Angels are already on their way to Niihama."

"Then that's where we're going," Nightstar said. "See you around, Barbara. Tell Dad Joh'n and I say hi."

She closed the communication link.

"We can't all go to Niihama," Samara said. "We still have to aid the reconstruction of the city."

"I know," Nightstar said. "That's why we're splitting up. Bladefire, you stay with Samara and Inferno to continue the reconstruction. Beast Girl, Mercury, you two are coming to Niihama with me."

* * *

Nightstar, Beast Girl, and Mercury packed their bags and boarded the T-Jet, Nightstar piloting.

"Niihama," Mercury said. "Isn't that the center of political and economic power for Japan ever since World War III?"

"You've been studying up, haven't you?" Nightstar commented.

"Speed reading," Mercury answered.

The T-Jet could travel at hypersonic speeds, so the trip from Jump City to Niihama only took minutes as opposed to hours. Granted, either Nightstar flying or Mercury running could have made it to Niihama at the same rate, but none of Beast Girl's animals – even in hybrid state – could move that fast, hence the T-Jet.

* * *

Nightstar landed the T-Jet in an abandoned airport and stepped out of it, Beast Girl and Mercury following. Nightstar pulled out a tiny remote and pressed a button on it, activating the cloak option of the T-Jet and thus rendering it invisible.

"Good thing this place is abandoned," Beast Girl said.

"Now we just have to rendezvous with the Steel Angels," Nightstar added.

"Where did they say for us to meet them?" Mercury asked.

"The headquarters of Public Security Section 9," Nightstar replied. "They've been assembled specifically to fight cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism. I guess that's why the Steel Angels chose to have us meet there."

"Do we get to take a break at some point?" Beast Girl asked. "Because I wanna check out the manga they've got here."

"Same," Mercury agreed.

"We'll check out manga _after_ we find this hacker and put a stop to him," Nightstar answered.

"Wait, how do we find Section 9's headquarters?" Mercury questioned.

Nightstar pulled out her communicator and flipped it open, revealing a GPS map.

"If we go west, we should be able to find it," she replied, rising into the air and beginning to fly.

"Wait for me!" Beast Girl shouted, transforming into a harpy and flying after Nightstar.

Mercury ran west, a blur to any who saw him.

Below the two girls, the citizens of Niihama looked up in stunned awe, metahumans being a somewhat rare thing in Japan.

The three Titans made their way to the towering complex that housed Public Security Section 9. Once they reached it, they were greeted by four girls.

One was blonde and dressed in a black leather jacket over a black sleeveless leotard and fishnet stockings with black boots and gloves, a mini-quiver strapped to her right thigh and a mini-bow mounted on her right wrist. The second was an Amazonian girl clad in armor that was mainly red but with some dashes of bluish silver and black. The third was an African-American girl with her hair tied in two wavy ponytails and multifaceted eyes, dressed in a sleeveless full-body suit that was striped yellow and black down to below her bosom and completely black from below said bosom. The fourth was a red-haired girl dressed in a red armored tunic and skirt over a skintight black suit and red visor-like glasses.

"Hi, Nightstar," Black Canary, the leather-clad blonde, greeted. "It's been a while. And you said you'd try to visit more."

"Sorry, Canary," Nightstar answered. "Things have been crazy lately."

"So I've heard," Black Canary commented.

Nightstar turned to the red-haired girl. "What are you doing here, Robin?"

"Oracle sent me," Robin replied.

"We'd better go inside," the armored girl, Avia, spoke. "The Major is getting impatient."

The Steel Angels, the Titans, and Robin entered the complex, taking the elevator up to the level where Section 9 met. Once they arrived, they stepped out of the elevator and went into Section 9's main room.

* * *

"The Teen Titans," a distinguished older male voice greeted. "It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

The Titans, Steel Angels, and Robin found themselves looking at a man whose hair was gone from the top of his head but remained in almost a puffy halo below.

"Greetings," he spoke. "My name is Aramaki Daisuke, head of Public Security Section 9."

"Hello, Aramaki-san," Nightstar greeted. "My name is Nightstar and these are my fellow Titans Beast Girl and Mercury."

Beast Girl looked around. "This is an awesome place you have here, Mr. Aramaki."

"Yeah, not bad," Mercury agreed.

"I'd like to introduce the three of you to my operatives," Aramaki said.

At that moment, the Titans became aware of several individuals in the room with them. One was a tall, broad-shouldered white-haired man with gray optical implants. Another was a bearded man with dark hair. A third was a man similar in appearance to the first, only he was bald and his optical implants were a burnt red color. The fourth was a thin man with eyes that seemed perpetually narrowed. The fifth was a man with a patch over his left eye. The sixth was a man with a light brown mullet and dressed in a tan jacket and slacks. And the seventh was . . .

Mercury felt his mouth go dry at the sight of the seventh.

_Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!_ the Titan speedster thought. _Dontstareatherboobsdontstareatherboobsdontstareather – ohmygodohmygodohmygodImstaringImstaringstopmestopmestopme!_

That stream of panicked consciousness occurred in less than a second.

The seventh was a woman, seemingly 25 years old, with short purple hair and eyes like burnt sienna. She wore a black jacket over a low-cut lavender bustier and low-riding blue jeans.

An amused grin made its way onto her face.

Beast Girl reached behind Mercury and pinched his rear, startling him out of the panicked state in which his mind had been frozen. The speedster let out a relieved breath.

"Thanks," he whispered.

"I'm Kusanagi Motoko," the woman introduced herself. "And these men are Batou, Ishikawa, Boma, Pazu, Saito, and Togusa."

"What brings you rookies here?" Batou asked gruffly.

"A cyberpath," Nightstar replied. "Whoever it was broke into our mainframe and tried to kill us with our own systems. The same person broke into Oracle's setup."

"Oracle?" Aramaki asked. "And here I thought Oracle was invincible."

The sarcasm in his voice was not missed, although it was more of a joke than an actual insult.

"We came here because we believed we could combine our resources," Hornet, the bumblebee-styled girl, stated.

"Cyberpaths," Robin muttered. "I freaking hate cyberpaths."

"Understandable enough," Kusanagi acceded. "Cyberpaths make particularly dangerous cyber-criminals and terrorists. After all, a brain doesn't have an IP address."

"Do cyberbrains have IP addresses?" Mercury asked.

Batou grunted, although it didn't sound discontented as much as it sounded like a very brief chuckle.

"That would be going slightly overboard," Togusa replied. "Not to mention that it could be a step down a very dangerous path, at least ethically speaking."

"Whoever this hacker is, he's a ghost," Aramaki continued. "At least that's what the hacker community is saying about him. He has no substantiality in the real world; he's just haunting the Web like a wraith, infiltrating computer systems and networks at will."

"Is this bastard up to something or does he just like ripping up other people's networks?" Beast Girl asked.

"It seems like the latter," Aramaki answered. "At any rate, hackers – cyberpathic or not – usually leave behind digital breadcrumbs. Granted, it will be harder to use them to track a literal ghost in the machine, but he will eventually invade another system and that will be the time to strike."

"It could be an AI gone rogue," Hornet suggested.

"We've been looking into that angle," Kusanagi answered. "So far, we're turning up nothing."

"How about hitting some underground cyber-bars?" Robin suggested.

"A good plan," Aramaki admitted. "The underground cyber-bars are a mecca for hackers, both experienced and inexperienced. You may find someone who knows something."

Kusanagi looked at the seven young heroes. "You're not going out of here looking like that, are you?"

"Why not?" Robin asked.

"You're too conspicuous dressed like that," Kusanagi replied.

* * *

Later on, Nightstar, Black Canary, Robin, and Kusanagi were investigating in an underground cyber-bar. Kusanagi was in her standard attire, while the three heroines had changed into normal clothes. Nightstar was dressed in a black button-up bodice and miniskirt with knee-high boots. Black Canary had simply detached her wrist-crossbow and mini-quiver and put on a miniskirt over her leotard. Robin wore a black jean jacket over a red T-shirt and black jeans.

All over the bar, patrons were sitting at the tables surfing the Internet via the bar's wireless network. Those that weren't in the mood to go online were either shooting pool or drinking. Noise music played from the overhead speakers.

Black Canary strode up to the two young men playing and grinned flirtatiously at them.

"Hello, boys," she greeted in near-perfect Japanese. "Mind if I play the winner?"

"No problem," one of the young men answered, sinking the winning ball. The other young man handed his cue stick to Black Canary and smiled at her.

"I have a proposition for you," she spoke to the previous winner. "If I beat you, you answer any question I ask. If you beat me, I'll do whatever you ask."

"Whatever?" the young man asked.

"Whatever," Black Canary replied, her voice heavy with promise.

"You're on," the young man said, setting up the balls. He grinned at her once he was finished. "First move is yours."

Black Canary bent forward, setting herself up for a break. To her mild surprise, she felt someone behind her, pressed to her back and adjusting the position of her arms.

"Your position was a little off," Kusanagi whispered in her ear. "Try it now."

Black Canary broke with her pool cue and the cue ball rolled into the other balls, causing them to ricochet all around the pool table, sinking balls in all four corners.

"You're . . . incredible!" the young man exclaimed.

Black Canary smiled.

"Your turn."

The young man lined himself up for a break. "Red ball, middle right pocket."

He made his move and the balls ricocheted off each other before the red ball sank into the middle right pocket.

The game ended rather quickly, with Black Canary claiming victory.

"What's your question?" the young man asked.

"Have you heard of a hacker who can infiltrate computer systems with just his thoughts?" Black Canary asked.

"Just his thoughts?" the young man echoed. "No cyberbrain or nothing, just his thoughts?"

"Exactly," Kusanagi confirmed. "A cyberpath. Do you know anything?"

"What I do know is that whoever it is, he's got insane skills," the young man replied. "He can break into any system at will and no matter what security they've got, it's nothing to him. He's too good to be human, so what some of my friends were thinking was that he's some kind of AI or somebody's ghost that got stuck in cyberspace and is just causing trouble 'cause he's mad he don't got a body anymore."

"Anything else?" Black Canary asked.

The young man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, revealing a drawing that resembled a cybernetic eye.

"It's from a friend of mine," he replied. "He got ghost-hacked two nights ago and when he came out of it, he drew this, said it was the bastard's calling card."

Nightstar suddenly had a flash of memory, of seeing a similar cybernetic eye just before she had managed to lock out the hacker that had infiltrated the Titans Tower mainframe.

"Thank you," Kusanagi said, taking the paper. "You've been more of a help than you realize."

* * *

As the four walked out, Nightstar turned to Robin and asked, "What's ghost-hacking? Hell, what's a ghost?"

"A ghost is the consciousness, the mind, possibly the 'soul' of a person that exists in a cybernetically enhanced body or brain," Robin explained. "A ghost-hack is hacking done to cyberbrains, like what happened to Canary."

"The eye . . ." Black Canary murmured. "I saw it, too, when that hacker was in my brain." She shuddered, remembering how she had nearly killed her fellow Steel Angels.

"So did I," Nightstar interjected, "when I was repelling the hacker."

The Tamaranean-human hybrid looked at her longtime friend. "Are you . . . all right?"

"No," Black Canary whispered. "I nearly killed my friends . . . under that bastard's control." She shuddered again. "God . . . what am I that I can be controlled like that?"

"You know, mind control happens regardless of whether you're fully organic or not," Nightstar whispered back. She reached out and held Black Canary's hand. "And you'll always be human to me, remember?"

Black Canary smiled at the ensuing memory.

_

* * *

_

Two years ago, Olivia Queen sat in her bed, morbidly pondering what had happened to her.

_Her then-boyfriend had been driving too recklessly, despite her repeated warnings. He'd swerved to avoid an oncoming car . . . and wrapped his around a tree._

_He'd died instantly. She'd been doomed to a slow, comatose death._

_Her parents – Oliver "Ollie" Queen and Dinah Lance – had been desperate enough to save her that they'd allowed doctors to replace the damaged portions of her body and brain with cybernetic material, wrapped in imitation flesh and muscle. As a result, she was alive and well, but with abilities nobody human could possess. She was stronger, faster, and more agile, not to mention that her memory and computational skills were sharper. There had been just one cost._

_She was no longer human. She could tell just by looking at herself in the mirror; she was too perfect to be human._

_Her gloomy musings were interrupted by a knock on the door._

"_I told you to go away, Dad!" she yelled._

"_It's Mar'i," a different voice, feminine and soft in timbre, answered. "May I come in?"_

"_Yes," Olivia answered more softly._

_The door opened and Mar'i Grayson entered the room._

"_How are you?" she asked._

"_How do you think?" Olivia retorted acidly, recoiling at the glimmer of hurt in Mar'i's eyes although the half-Tamaranean girl's face was still. "I'm sorry."_

"_They only wanted to save you," Mar'i whispered._

"_Look at me," Olivia answered harshly. "Do I look human to you?"_

"_You are human," Mar'i responded._

"_No, I'm a facsimile of one," Olivia amended. "This is just a shell. A perfect, hollow shell."_

_Mar'i walked to the bed and got on it, straddling Olivia._

"_What are you doing?" Olivia asked._

"_Your body may be cybernetic, but this –" Mar'i placed her hand on Olivia's chest, right over her heart – "is still human. This will always be human."_

_Mar'i leaned forward and kissed Olivia on the lips, pulling away only ten seconds later._

"_Did you feel something?" she asked the blonde._

"_Yes," Olivia replied softly._

"_Then you're still human," Mar'i said. "Remember that, Olivia."_

* * *

The foursome had returned to Section 9 headquarters.

"Any progress on your end?" Kusanagi asked.

"We've been monitoring the chat rooms," Ishikawa replied. "People are talking about this hacker, but nobody's saying anything that indicates they know who he is."

"We also got interrupted," Togusa added.

"Who interrupted?" Kusanagi asked.

"The digital anarchist herself," Batou replied. "Intrigue."

"Intrigue?" Nightstar echoed.

"You know her?" Kusanagi asked.

"We're loose acquaintances," Nightstar replied.

"Another of her one-minute broadcasts detailing the crimes of the American Empire," Ishikawa contributed. "Wonder how she's managed to avoid being taken out."

"She's a woman without a face," Aramaki answered. "That makes her very hard to identify."

"We found something," Robin interjected. "A clue to the hacker's identity."

Kusanagi pulled out the paper the young man at the cyber-bar had given her and handed it to Ishikawa. "See if you can use this to track him down."

"Good work, Major," Aramaki said. "As soon as we find out who this hacker is, be prepared to move in on him."

Ishikawa began the search, the computer operating at incomprehensible speed to find a match. Within minutes, a match was found.

"I can't believe it," he muttered.

"What is it?" Hornet asked.

"It's one of your American super-criminals," Ishikawa replied. "Specifically, this one."

The Titans and Steel Angels gathered around Ishikawa, looking at the screen.

"Overload?" Mercury uttered in stunned surprise.

"Slade's lackey?" Beast Girl added in similar surprise. "_That_ Overload?"

"It appears that you'll have to take him more seriously now," Aramaki remarked wryly.

"It all makes sense now," Nightstar murmured. "Overload was a creature of electricity. He could have easily infiltrated an electronic device and used it to escape into cyberspace. Then he spent all that time refining his power until he could infiltrate anything electronic, particularly computer-based devices, at will."

"How do we stop him?" Avia asked. "Not like we can punch out an electronic being."

"How about we pull him out of cyberspace and fight him here?" Mercury suggested.

"No!" Aramaki answered firmly. More softly, "That would not be a good idea. The destruction a creature like Overload could cause outside of cyberspace would be catastrophic, as would the destruction you yourselves would cause battling him. The only other way is to fight him in his arena."

"You're going to upload their brains into cyberspace?" Togusa surmised.

"Yes," Aramaki confirmed. "They can confront him there." He looked at the Titans and Steel Angels. "Be careful. If you die in cyberspace, your body will be nothing more than a hollow shell."

"Overload's making his move," Ishikawa said. "He's attacking a military computer network."

"Which one?" Kusanagi asked.

"Ours," Ishikawa answered. "If he gets at our missiles, he could start World War V."

"We're not letting that happen," Nightstar declared.

* * *

The Titans, Steel Angels, and Robin reclined in pods with headsets over their eyes, their minds uploaded into the Japanese military's network. Inside cyberspace, they looked considerably different from their real-world appearances.

Nightstar was dressed in what looked like a translucent lavender mini-dress with matching boots, translucent silver bracers, and a tiara with a black star emblazoned on it. Beast Girl wore a pink-and-white corset and skintight black pants. Mercury wore a suit that was red from the neck but black from the chest down, the black part marked in the center with tire tread-style ridging and the red part marked by a silver lightning bolt. Black Canary wore a black leather half-shirt and pants with a white scarf tied around her neck, a mini-quiver strapped to her thigh, and a mini-bow attached to her wrist. Avia wore what looked like a one-piece red metal bathing suit, her long black hair, blue eyes, and strong yet beautiful features exposed. Hornet wore a black suit with a design on the chest that looked a lot like the wings of a hornet. Robin wore a black short-sleeved suit with a red stripe down the middle and a gold bird emblem on the chest and a black bird-shaped mask.

"Why do we look different?" Beast Girl asked.

"These are our cyber-avatars," Robin replied.

"Never mind that," Black Canary said. "Right now, we gotta take down Overload."

Nightstar's eyes glowed purple and she fired an optic blast, getting Overload's attention. The electrical beast turned to her and the others.

"Won't stop me," he snarled.

"You think so?" Black Canary asked, nocking an arrow into her mini-bow. She pressed the trigger in her glove and fired the arrow at Overload, said arrow embedding itself in Overload's electronic body and exploding. Overload's binary makeup broke into pieces of data and scattered.

Hornet fired electrical bolts at the pieces of Overload, attempting to prevent them from coming together again.

"We can't kill him," Robin said. "He's electronic and electronic information can exist infinitely in one form or another. The only way to stop him would be to quarantine him."

"Like a virus?" Mercury deduced.

"Yeah," Robin confirmed.

"Then let's go," Avia said.

Overload managed to bring himself back together.

"Why are you doing this?" Beast Girl asked.

"Information is power," Overload replied. "As a creature of digital information, I can acquire more power than anyone in the physical world. Here, I can be a true super-being. In fact, I can be the ultimate."

"Ultimate or not, you're going down!" Mercury shouted, charging Overload at hyper-speed. Unfortunately, Overload reacted faster and lashed at Mercury, knocking the speedster back.

"You may be a Titan of speed in the physical world, but here – _I_ am the fastest," Overload declared.

Hornet fired bursts of electricity at Overload in conjunction with Black Canary's explosive arrows. The combined assault managed to burst him apart, but the pieces of data that comprised him began to come back together.

Nightstar extended her energy strand as a lance, stabbing one of the Overload pieces. Robin drew an energy staff and brought one end down on another piece of Overload. Avia pulled out her Mega-Rod, passed down to her from her mother, and used it to blast other pieces of Overload. Mercury plunged his hand into an Overload piece and vibrated until it exploded into bits.

From out of nowhere, a crossbow bolt struck another piece of Overload and exploded, causing it to disintegrate. Nightstar turned and saw a girl dressed in a black trench coat over dark clothes and whose face was covered by a white-and-black mask designed to be similar to a Rorschach test, flowing black hair adorning her head.

"Intrigue?" she asked.

"He broke into my systems, too," Intrigue replied. "And I'm going to make sure he doesn't break into anything ever again."

"Don't look now, but I think he's starting to respawn," Beast Girl said.

Indeed, Overload was coming together again.

"Now, while he's still weak," Nightstar ordered.

Hornet created an electrical net around Overload's re-forming self, trapping him.

Robin closed her eyes underneath the mask.

"What are you doing?" Beast Girl asked.

"Writing a quarantine program for this creep," Robin replied.

Overload began to vanish.

"_What are you doing?_" he roared.

"Imprisoning you in the lowest depths of cyberspace," Robin answered with a smirk.

Overload let out one last enraged scream before he vanished into the dregs of the Web.

Robin positioned her fingers to imitate a gun and blew on her index finger. "Am I good or what?"

"Yeah, you are," Nightstar answered dryly.

* * *

The Titans, Steel Angels, and Robin were downloaded back into their bodies, while Intrigue had gone back to her own body, wherever it was.

"You're not at all bad," Aramaki said to Robin. "If you should ever give up running around in tights, you may have a future here."

"Thanks," Robin answered. "But I think I'll be in the tights for a long time, so you might be dead before I come here again."

Aramaki allowed himself a brief smile.

"Um, Nightstar, now that we've got Overload contained . . ." Mercury whispered.

"Yeah, I know," Nightstar whispered back. "The manga. We'll get to that very, very soon." Aloud, "It's been nice, but we've got responsibilities back in the States. A city to rebuild, people to protect from dangerous criminals, that sort of thing."

"We understand," Aramaki said. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Nightstar answered. "Good luck to you, too."

* * *

End Notes: Might as well end it here; there's nowhere else to go from here.

One important thing I must note is the flashback scene. As I said in the End Notes of "Red Night," Nightstar is by no means a lesbian; that kiss between her and Olivia/Black Canary was her way of proving to Olivia that she was still human. Besides, in the Tamaranean tradition of DC's comic universe, love is freely expressed no matter the gender. Nightstar may not be sexually attracted to Black Canary, but she certainly loves her in the way an intimate (not in that way) friend would.

Why did I use Overload as the villain of this piece? Mainly because he would be a good villain for this era: an electronic consciousness that cannot be truly destroyed. He certainly did a lot of damage before he was stopped. Of course, this may very well not be the end for Overload, because people can slip through quarantines in the real world.

Intrigue is a character I intended to use in a next-generation Justice League piece, but since I'm probably not going to be writing that anytime soon, I didn't want her to go to waste.

The American Empire is the result of expansionism on the part of the United States in the timeline of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. There is still a United States, though, but there is also the American Empire. If you want more details, look it up on Wikipedia.

That's all out of me. Let me know what you think.


	33. Side Story 12: Rogue State

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 12: "Rogue State"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. The characters Nightstar, Blackfire, and Ryand'r do not belong to me; they are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Galfore is also the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers, although more Warner Brothers than DC Comics since he appeared in the TV series and not in the comics. Mercury is the property of Marvel and DC via their Amalgam project. Everyone else is mine.

Author's note: This is a story I've wanted to do for a while. The way it's supposed to work is that it'll get closure for Nightstar and Bladefire concerning their mother Starfire's death. Any more details would spoil the story and I'd prefer to leave some surprises for you. Anyway, read and enjoy.

* * *

Nightstar and Bladefire flew through the cold vacuum of space, rocketing through the universe at light speed. As they flew, they passed by various galaxies and planets, deftly avoiding any passing starships.

They were on their way to Tamaran, and Nightstar found herself remembering why.

_

* * *

_

The day had been just another day. Train, finish rebuilding the city, and stomp a few bad guys.

_Until Ryand'r – Nightstar and Bladefire's uncle – sent a transmission to Titans Tower._

"_Mar'i, Joh'n, I need your help," he said._

"_For what, Uncle Ryand'r?" Nightstar asked._

"_I cannot say," Ryand'r replied. "Not this way. You will have to come to me. To Tamaran."_

"_Understood," Bladefire said. "We're on our way."_

_The transmission ended there._

* * *

The half-Tamaranean siblings were finally within sight of Tamaran. It was a luminescent white orb streaked and blotched with pink. They flew closer, speeding through the atmosphere until they penetrated it and entered the surface of the planet.

The twins flew over the surface of the planet, seeing equal parts wasteland, forest, and meadow. The wasteland became more dominant the closer they flew to the palace, but even there life bloomed.

When they arrived at the palace, they were greeted by a small platoon of Tamaranean warriors, headed by Blackfire. The eldest of the Tamaranean royal family was garbed in a black brassiere-like garment and loincloth, although the loincloth had more material in the back than the front. Knee-high armored boots adorned her feet, black bracers with embedded purple gems adorned her forearms, and a neck-guard with a purple gem embedded rested on her shoulders. A Tamaranean warrior mark, shaped vaguely like an "S," rested below her left eye.

"Nightstar, Bladefire," she greeted. "It's good to see you again."

"Likewise, Aunt Komand'r," Nightstar answered.

"Come in," Blackfire said. "Of course, we'll have to get you better clothes."

"Sure," Bladefire murmured.

Blackfire and her warriors escorted the siblings into the palace, where they were whisked off to fitting rooms. When they came out, they were attired in Tamaranean garb. Nightstar wore an extremely small purple-edged black top and four-part armored skirt with a white half-cape flowing from the back, thigh-high purple-edged black boots, purple bracers with embedded green gems, and a neck-guard with an embedded green gem. Bladefire wore a light indigo sleeveless top and skintight black pants with light indigo-and-black boots, silver bracers with embedded indigo gems, and a neck-guard with an embedded indigo gem.

"You look great," Blackfire remarked.

"Thanks," Nightstar replied.

"Oh, it's you," a voice greeted sardonically. "I almost thought I'd never see you again."

Nightstar and Bladefire turned to see what appeared to be a teenaged version of Blackfire, only with striking blue eyes in place of violet and dressed in an extremely small black top similar to Nightstar's and black shorts that only covered a third of her thighs with knee-high black boots, silver bracers with embedded purple gems, and a neck-guard with an embedded purple gem. Like Blackfire, this girl wore a Tamaranean warrior mark underneath her left eye, this one shaped like a right-facing parenthesis but sharper.

"Rhiand'r," Nightstar greeted. "It's been too long."

"Not long enough, honestly," Rhiand'r contradicted.

"Anyway, it's about time we brought you two to Ryand'r," Blackfire said.

The four came to the meeting chamber, where Ryand'r – the spitting image of Starfire, only male and with somewhat spiked hair – was in a meeting with the Royal Council, Galfore being among the council. The hulking warrior took notice of Nightstar and Bladefire, immediately rising to lunge at the twins . . . only to begin tickling them, eliciting helpless laughter from both.

"My little _bumgorfs,_" he murmured. "It is so good to see you again."

"And it's good to see you, Galfore," Nightstar greeted, smiling warmly at the old warrior.

"Mar'i, Joh'n, it is very good seeing you again," Ryand'r said, "although I wish it wasn't under these circumstances."

"What's wrong?" Bladefire asked.

Ryand'r looked at his council and spoke. "I would like to be alone with my niece and nephew. You're dismissed for the moment."

The councilors rose up and walked away, although each and every one of them paused to greet Nightstar and Bladefire. In Bladefire's case, the female councilors chose to flirt with him a bit, with comments like, "You are most definitely no longer a child," or, "You will be a beautiful man soon." Such comments were innocent enough in phrasing, but the edge with which they'd been spoken – along with the appraising glances – had proven them not so innocent.

Once the councilors were gone, Ryand'r began to speak.

"I have spent the past week fending off assassins," Ryand'r replied. "They are all in containment chambers right now and all of them have refused to tell me who sent them. However, I suspect that they were sent by sympathizers of the insurgents that tried to take over Tamaran all those years ago. Unfortunately, I am unable to prove this."

"Why bring us in?" Bladefire asked.

"Your father comes from a family – if that's what they style themselves to be – of detectives," Ryand'r replied. "I know he and others in his family are excellent gatherers of information to solve crimes and I know they have passed on those skills to you. Therefore, I believe you can help me find the ones that seek my life and expose them."

"Did you put any of them on the council by any chance?" Nightstar asked.

"Yes," Ryand'r answered. "There are a few allegedly former sympathizers on the Royal Council. A necessary evil, for the sake of bridging ideological gaps. Converting enemies into allies can be more useful than simply eliminating them."

Rhiand'r scoffed.

"Should have, to use the vernacular, slagged the lot of them," she commented.

"That would have been an unnecessary taking of life," Ryand'r stated.

"Unnecessary, my ass," Rhiand'r sneered. "You were always soft, uncle. Isn't that why our beloved Koriand'r is no longer with us?"

Ryand'r's eyes flashed with rage.

"How dare you!" he exclaimed.

Blackfire placed a hand on Rhiand'r's shoulders, warning the younger female that she had gone too far.

Ryand'r collected himself before speaking again. He turned to Nightstar and Bladefire.

"I want you two to investigate my councilors."

"All of them?" Nightstar asked.

"All of them," Ryand'r confirmed. "Even Galfore."

"Galfore would never betray us," Bladefire stated.

"Besides, he's too loyal to the memory of Koriand'r to join up with the same people who killed her," Blackfire added.

"I'll help," Rhiand'r said. "I can read emotions through the body. I'll know if anyone's being evasive."

"All right," Ryand'r said. "The three of you will be working together on this. For now, I would suggest that Nightstar and Bladefire come to dinner with us."

* * *

At dinner, various Tamaranean dishes were presented, all of them easily capable of disgusting a human. When the feast began, everyone present – even Nightstar and Bladefire – ate with savage gusto. If their father had been present, he would have certainly been as frightened as he had been when he'd first witnessed a Tamaranean feast.

"Ah, that was good," Nightstar said, taking a swill of a Tamaranean drink comparable to Earth wine.

"Yes," Bladefire agreed, drinking as well.

"And now it is time we all rested," Ryand'r spoke. "Mar'i, Joh'n, Rhiand'r, Komand'r, Galfore, I will see you all tomorrow." He called out to one of his servants, a young man dressed in a purple loincloth and little else. "Show Mar'i and Joh'n to their quarters."

"Yes, my liege," the young man answered. He turned to Nightstar and Bladefire. "Come."

* * *

The young servant escorted the twins to their respective quarters.

"How . . . has my uncle been?" Nightstar asked him.

"The absence of Princess Koriand'r affects him deeply, even to this day," the servant replied. "He celebrates her life, her nobility, her valiance – but her memory is no substitute for her presence."

"I know," Nightstar murmured.

"He misses the two of you," the servant went on. "He has not seen either of you since that day and he wonders . . . if you have any antipathy toward this world."

The twins looked at him.

"Princess Koriand'r died defending this world," the servant expounded. "He would not blame you if you directed your anger at her death toward Tamaran."

When neither twin said anything, he continued.

"Princess Koriand'r loved this planet, with a passion equal to that of the love she had for you both. Her last wish was that our goddess X'Hal look after the two of you and give you the strength to continue living, with or without her."

He smiled. "Your quarters, my princess and prince."

"Thank you," Nightstar said. "Pleasant _shlorvaks._"

"And may both of you have pleasant _shlorvaks_ this night," the servant responded before departing for his own quarters.

As soon as the servant was far out of sight, Nightstar and Bladefire departed in the opposite direction, moving swiftly and silently. Their particular aim was to find whatever passed for a database in the Tamaranean royal palace.

They found their way to the records room of the palace and began looking through the records, which were stored in what appeared to be an orb computer.

"Orb, cross-reference records of current Royal Councilors with records of known insurgents or insurgent sympathizers," Bladefire commanded in perfect Tamaranean.

The orb faintly hummed as it examined the data at speeds unheard-of even in the most advanced Earthly computers. In mere moments it spat out five names – along with pictures.

"Tani'yr, Ay'n, Syri'n, Erasth'a, and Rena't," Nightstar read from the screen.

"I think it's time we started talking to the prisoners," Bladefire suggested.

* * *

By the time they reached the containment chambers, the twins found Rhiand'r interrogating one of the prisoners.

"You can tell me who sent you to kill Grand Emperor Ryand'r this instant and I'll go easy on you," she hissed threateningly. "Or you can keep being a stubborn _clorbag_ and I'll _not_ go so easy on you."

The prisoner glared at her in defiant silence.

"Fine," Rhiand'r said. "If that's how you want it."

Then she drew a Tamaranean lance and charged it with azure energy . . .

. . . right before plunging it into the prisoner's shoulder.

"Not screaming, huh?" Rhiand'r remarked. "That's all right. The expression on your face tells me how much that hurts, anyway. The way your body moves tells me how much it hurts. You can try not to scream, but I have all night. All _gin'kfu_ night. See how long you last."

"Rhiand'r!" Nightstar exclaimed.

"Oh, hi, Mar'i," Rhiand'r greeted nonchalantly. "Say, would you help me interrogate this bastard?"

"Pull that lance out first," Nightstar answered.

"I'm trying to get him to talk," Rhiand'r said. "I can't get him to talk if I do it half-assed like you'd do it."

"Never mind that," Bladefire said. "Mar'i and I already have it narrowed down to five Royal Councilors. That's right; five out of twelve of the Royal Councilors are former supporters of the insurgency. I'm betting one of them hired this guy. Isn't that right?"

The prisoner turned his defiant glare upon Bladefire.

"Keep looking at me like that," Bladefire said. "You're the one in there, and I'm out here."

"It is one of them," Rhiand'r said. "He knows damn well which one hired him and I'm going to find out which one it is."

"We won't get it out of him by torturing him," Nightstar said.

"No . . ." Rhiand'r agreed. "But I have _other_ ways of persuading him."

She straddled the prisoner, despite having the energy-laced lance still in his shoulder. A forbidding yet sensuous smile crossed her features as she began to rub herself against him like a cat.

"You know . . ." she purred. "If you just tell me, I can make sure nothing happens to your family. Yes, I know you have a family. A brother, wives for both of you, beautiful children out of both those unions. What do you think your employers will do if they think you talked? They won't be able to get to you in here, not without compromising themselves . . . but they can target your family. Yes, they can, and you won't be able to do a thing about it. But I can save them from that fate; you just have to talk."

The prisoner groaned, although whether that groan was one of trepidation or pleasure was a confusing matter.

"You like this, don't you?" Rhiand'r went on. "As much as you want to remain faithful to your wife, you like this. Come on, tell me. You can tell me. It'll be just between you and me . . . well, you, me, and my cousins."

"Stop this," the prisoner groaned.

"Why should I?" Rhiand'r asked. "I have the upper hand."

"That's enough, Rhiand'r," Nightstar said. "We don't need him anymore."

Rhiand'r pulled the lance out of the prisoner's shoulder and dissipated the blue energy around it.

"Too bad," she whispered to the prisoner. "I would have shown you things that would make you call me X'Hal."

She walked out of the containment chamber, her hips swaying teasingly.

* * *

Nightstar and Bladefire caught up to their cousin and halted her stride.

"That was utterly unacceptable," Nightstar censured the younger girl.

"By your standards," Rhiand'r replied. "You forget, Mar'i, we don't show mercy to those that threaten us. We use every tactic at our disposal to neutralize and destroy them."

"Including what you did back there?" Nightstar asked.

"And more if I had to," Rhiand'r answered. "Besides, I was breaking his will. It was in his body language; he was starting to lose his will to resist."

"Of course," Bladefire murmured. "If I had an attractive girl grinding against me while threatening my family, that would tax my willpower."

"If you're going to interfere with me, you'd better have information I can use," Rhiand'r spat, scowling at the twins.

"We do," Bladefire answered. "Tani'yr, Ay'n, Syri'n, Erasth'a, and Rena't. The 'former' insurgent sympathizers, presently members of the Royal Council."

"When do we start putting the screws to them?" Rhiand'r asked.

"We don't," Nightstar replied. "Not yet. We rest now . . . and we observe those five in the morning. The guilty party (or parties) will reveal themselves sooner or later."

"Whatever you say," Rhiand'r drawled sarcastically.

* * *

The next morning, Nightstar and Bladefire came down to the palace dining room for breakfast – which was every bit as savage as the previous night's dinner. Once breakfast was finished, Ryand'r pulled the twins and Rhiand'r aside, along with Blackfire.

"What's wrong, Uncle?" Rhiand'r asked, her voice sickly sweet.

"One of the prisoners," Ryand'r replied. "Guards found him this morning with a wound in his shoulder. By the time they reached him, it was already mostly healed, but they had medics take care of him to expedite the process. Now, I'd like to know why exactly the remote monitoring equipment was malfunctioning the night before."

"Earth has diluted them," Rhiand'r sneered, regarding Nightstar and Bladefire. "Turned them both into soft-hearted cowards, much like you, Uncle."

Ryand'r glared at her. "Was it you who gave him that wound, Rhiand'r?"

"So what if it was?" Rhiand'r asked unrepentantly.

"You went to him against my wishes," Ryand'r answered. "Behind my back, even."

"You authorized me and Koriand'r's children to investigate these attempts on your life, my king," Rhiand'r retorted, her tone mocking on the last two sentences. "I was investigating . . . and if you're going to condemn me for what I did, then you should condemn Mar'i and Joh'n for accessing your records room."

"And what did you two find that was worth going in there?" Blackfire asked.

"Five of the Royal Councilors were supporters of the insurgency," Nightstar replied. "But I suppose you were already aware of that."

"I believed that giving them a seat at the table would mitigate their hostilities," Ryand'r explained. "Apparently, I was wrong."

"Tani'yr, Ay'n, Syri'n, Erasth'a, and Rena't," Blackfire said. "It's them, isn't it?"

"Yes, but we don't know for certain which one of them hired those assassins or even if all of them are in on it," Nightstar answered.

"Continue the investigation, then," Ryand'r said.

* * *

The twins and Rhiand'r walked out of the dining room and Nightstar turned to Rhiand'r.

"Why are you being this way?" she asked.

Rhiand'r simply sneered at Nightstar. "Diluted, both of you."

"Diluted?" Bladefire asked.

"Yes, diluted," Rhiand'r answered. "Being raised on Earth has made you _rutha._ You are a disgrace to your Tamaranean blood."

"_We're_ disgraces?" Bladefire asked coldly. "You're the one using pain, sex, and threats to get information out of prisoners."

"Here's a little something you forgot about Tamaranean philosophy: To preserve peace, you must be willing to eliminate those that threaten that peace," Rhiand'r answered just as coldly. "You seem rather unwilling to do that. I suppose I have your father to thank for that; so-called 'superheroes' are so disgustingly squeamish."

"We have an investigation to continue," Nightstar said. "I suggest we observe our suspects."

* * *

The observation began at the next Royal Council meeting. Nightstar, Bladefire, and Rhiand'r remotely observed the meeting, Rhiand'r looking for any signs of deception in the five "former" insurgent sympathizers' body language.

"They're good," Rhiand'r murmured. "If any of them is plotting against Uncle Ryand'r, they're pretty good at moving normally in his presence. But they seem apprehensive, nervous. Of course, that could be attributed to just them being former insurgent sympathizers and thus having played a role in Aunt Koriand'r's death. I'd certainly be nervous around somebody if I had a hand in the death of someone they loved."

"And here I thought you were a callous bitch who didn't care who got hurt as long as she got what she came for," Nightstar remarked offhandedly.

"Think that if you want," Rhiand'r answered. "Wait . . . Syri'n seems slightly more nervous than the other four. The talk of attempts on King Ryand'r's life . . . why, if I didn't know better . . . I'd say he was scared."

"Scared of being found out?" Bladefire surmised.

"Most likely," Rhiand'r answered. "He's covering something, and scared of what'll happen if it sees the light of day."

* * *

After the meeting was over, the twins and Rhiand'r split up to follow the five possibly rogue councilors secretly. Like them, the councilors traveled by flight, as Tamaraneans had no need for planet-bound vehicles. Unfortunately, as the councilors were five and the three were just three, they couldn't follow all of them. Therefore, they simply followed the three that made them more suspicious, Rhiand'r following Syri'n while Nightstar followed Tani'yr and Bladefire followed Erasth'a.

As Rhiand'r soared behind Syri'n, the possibly rogue councilor turned to face her, his emerald eyes glowing with challenge.

"Do you think me a traitor to the Grand Emperor?" he asked. "Then best me in battle and I shall tell you the truth."

"Why should I believe you?" Rhiand'r asked.

"I am offering you an opportunity," Syri'n replied. "Do not be foolish and spurn it."

"You're on," Rhiand'r said, flying to a desolate patch of wasteland with Syri'n following her. Upon landing, she withdrew her lance.

"Why, Rhiand'r, you would not challenge an unarmed opponent, would you?" Syri'n mused. "Ah, I forgot. You cannot project your energy; only transmit it into what you touch."

Rhiand'r snarled and replaced her lance. "Unarmed, then. Defend yourself, you son of a bitch."

That was the only warning Syri'n got before she charged him and struck with a brutal kick. Syri'n blocked Rhiand'r's first kick, but Rhiand'r spun into a second kick, striking him in the face. She flipped in midair and brought her fist down for a solid punch, but Syri'n caught that fist. Rhiand'r simply propelled herself backwards into the air, taking Syri'n with her and swinging herself below him for another kick. This one he countered with a strong punch to her exposed midriff.

Rhiand'r righted herself in the air and flew at Syri'n as he flew at her, the two meeting halfway in a flurry of vicious blows. The daughter of Blackfire had to admit to herself that he was better than she'd expected, and she'd expected considerable combat prowess from him. So far, he was surpassing those expectations.

"You're not bad," she remarked.

"Neither are you," Syri'n answered.

The two Tamaraneans maneuvered through the air, easily evading each other's attacks.

_This would be so much better if I could use my weapon!_ Rhiand'r thought.

She descended, Syri'n descending after her with an ironic smile.

"What are you planning, Rhiand'r?" Syri'n asked.

Rhiand'r smiled and quickly shifted into a crouch, sending her energy through the ground. Unfortunately, Syri'n simply soared into the air again, evading the charge.

"Nice try," Syri'n said.

Rhiand'r soared toward him, moving swiftly and striking viciously. Syri'n blocked the strike and body-slammed her into the ground. Rhiand'r grabbed Syri'n and charged him with her energy, creating an explosive burst that knocked him off her. The councilor groaned as he landed on the ground, his body smoking.

Rhiand'r glided to the fallen councilor and looked at him.

"I win," she said. "Now talk."

"It was not I who ordered King Ryand'r's death," Syri'n answered.

"Then who was it?" Rhiand'r asked.

"It was Tani'yr," Syri'n replied.

"And why didn't you tell the Grand Emperor if you were so determined to prove your loyalty?" Rhiand'r inquired harshly.

"My family . . ." Syri'n answered. "She threatened to kill them if I told King Ryand'r."

"Mar'i," Rhiand'r murmured, and flew away, streaking through the red-violet sky of Tamaran like a blue meteor.

* * *

When she reached her cousin, she found the older girl battling Tani'yr. Rhiand'r entered the fray, thinking to surprise Tani'yr by attacking from behind. Tani'yr, however, spun into a chop that would have struck Rhiand'r in her temple if the younger female hadn't grabbed her wrist in time. Rhiand'r grabbed Tani'yr and sped toward the ground, spinning very rapidly. Before the daughter of Blackfire could complete her move, Tani'yr burst free of her grip and knocked her to the ground.

"Rhiand'r!" Nightstar exclaimed, firing an optic blast in Tani'yr's direction. Tani'yr simply raised a bracer-clad wrist to deflect the shot at an angle that caused it to bounce back at Nightstar, who moved out of the way and extended an energy lance with which to pierce the rogue councilor. "What are you planning?"

"Ryand'r has ruined Tamaran," Tani'yr replied. "I simply intend to restore it, to make it even better than it was."

"Restore it how exactly?" Nightstar asked. "By setting our people on a path of conquest and expansionism?"

"Our people, you say?" Tani'yr asked. "Maybe you do not understand this, but you are only half of what we are. Only half. It's only because of whom your mother was that you receive any status at all here."

Nightstar lashed out at Tani'yr with her energy whip, but Tani'yr evaded it.

"Another thing you don't understand: If we wish to survive as a people, we must be willing to expand," the rogue councilor continued. "We must be willing to stomp out those who would do us harm and make use of their resources so that we can deter others from seeking to harm us."

"And what good will that do?" Nightstar asked. "It'll just lead to more and more death and too many people died the first time you tried something like this! People like _my mother!_"

The half-Tamaranean girl rapidly descended toward Tani'yr, prepared to attack her physically. Tani'yr rose just as rapidly to meet her, the two colliding forcefully midway to exchange powerful strikes easily capable of ending a human life. Unfortunately for Tani'yr, Nightstar proved too agile and too maneuverable in the air for her to get any kind of solid hit. On the other hand, Tani'yr was constantly being assaulted from various angles and unable to sufficiently retaliate because the half-Tamaranean girl kept moving out of the way.

"Your mother was too sentimental for her own good," Tani'yr answered coldly. "The Dawn Princess, the Hope That Rises. Too bad she will never rise again."

It was pure psychological warfare. By poking the still-open wound of Nightstar's mother's death, the rogue councilor expected the girl to lose her composure and simply seek a direct attack.

She was right.

Nightstar roared in fury and struck with a brutal punch to Tani'yr's stomach. Tani'yr merely took the blow and wrapped her hand around Nightstar's wrist, trapping the half-Tamaranean in a vise grip that left her vulnerable to a hard elbow jab that sent her crashing to the ground. As Tani'yr flew down for a killing stroke, Nightstar looked up and her wrath exploded from her in the form of light, heat, and force concentrated into a beam from her eyes, striking Tani'yr with enough power to easily vaporize a human. For Tani'yr, the beam was enough to leave a smoking wound in her midsection, felling her.

Nightstar stalked over to the fallen Tani'yr, energy lariat in hand.

"I could easily use this to choke the life from you," she intoned maliciously. "I want to, honestly. I want you to die in the worst way possible. But I won't be the instrument of that death. No, I'll leave you to suffer for what you helped bring about all those years ago, as well as your attempts at assassinating my Grand Emperor Ryand'r. If I'm lucky, he will not be as forgiving as I am."

She wrapped Tani'yr in the lariat and dragged her over to Rhiand'r. "You all right?"

"Just fine," Rhiand'r replied grouchily. "Don't see why you didn't kill the bitch. Oh, well. She'll probably be executed. Treason and attempted regicide are high crimes, after all."

* * *

The next day, Nightstar looked out the balcony of her quarters.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Blackfire asked.

"Aunt Komand'r?" Nightstar asked.

"Tani'yr won't live to see next year's first sunrise," Blackfire replied. "Hope that makes you feel better."

"The scary thing is that it does," Nightstar said. "It still hurts. After all these years, it still hurts." She turned to look at Blackfire. "I know you and my mom never got along, but . . . do you miss her, too?"

"Every day, Starshine," Blackfire answered. "Every day. But I live every day for her, to honor her memory. Her life was something to be celebrated, no matter how much I despised it when we were younger. She was a great warrior, but even more importantly, a woman full of life and love and joy. She will be missed, but her memory – her legacy – lives on. In you and your brother."

"Thank you, Aunt Komand'r," Nightstar said.

"You're welcome," Blackfire answered.

* * *

Meanwhile, Rhiand'r had caught up with Bladefire, a sardonic smirk on her face.

"And here I thought you and Mar'i shared everything," she remarked. "But you have a secret . . . and secrets are fun."

"It's nothing you need to be concerned about," Bladefire responded.

"You're no fun," Rhiand'r said. "Oh, well. Keep your secret. It makes no difference to me. I just wonder what'll happen when she finds out."

* * *

Later that day, dinner had been enjoyed with the same feral gusto as was the custom on Tamaran. After it was finished, Ryand'r turned to Nightstar and Bladefire, who were sitting next to Galfore.

"Mar'i, Joh'n, would you two care to stay for longer?" he asked.

"Why?" Bladefire asked.

"I simply wished to show my appreciation to you for helping me root out those that sought my life," Ryand'r replied. "Of course, you two do have responsibilities back on Earth, so . . ."

"I suppose we can stay for one more day," Bladefire conceded.

"That is pleasant news, my _bumgorf!_" Galfore exclaimed, catching Bladefire in a fierce bear hug. Fortunately, Bladefire's Tamaranean constitution left him predisposed to shrugging off those hugs. However, it was somewhat embarrassing.

* * *

End Notes: And here is where I end this piece. It was fun to write, believe it or not. Ryand'r, in case you don't know, is Starfire and Blackfire's younger brother from the DC Comics universe.

What is Blackfire doing here and not being an antagonist? In my universe, she and Starfire made peace and as a demonstration of that peace Starfire revoked Blackfire's banishment.

The Royal Council serves as advisers to the Grand Emperor and exerts a degree of influence over him or her, effectively balancing out his or her power.

Rhiand'r, in case you were suspecting it, is Blackfire's daughter and, like Nightstar and Bladefire, is half human. The source of that human DNA is a Robin, but not Dick Grayson or Tim Drake. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out from that huge hint who it is.

The warrior markings on Blackfire's and Rhiand'r's faces were inspired by Turin-the-forsaken's redesigns of Starfire. The Tamaranean outfits for Nightstar, Bladefire, and Rhiand'r were also inspired by redesigns of Starfire, only the design I applied for Bladefire was of a gender-bent Starfire. Additionally, Blackfire's outfit in this version is based on a redesign of her done by Turin-the-forsaken. The only drawback is that he apparently doesn't have the tools to make golden skin, so Starfire and Blackfire come off as Caucasian humans.

"Starshine" is Starfire's nickname for a young Nightstar in The Kingdom, the much-maligned sequel to Kingdom Come.

That's enough explaining for now. Feel free to tell me what you thought of this piece.


	34. Side Story 13: Gehenna

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 13: "Gehenna"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, and Phoebus do not belong to me, either. Nightstar and Phoebus belong to DC Comics and are creations of Mark Waid and Alex Ross. Mercury belongs to DC and Marvel via Amalgam and is a creation of Mark Waid. Everything else is mine.

Author's note: On my forum for discussing this story, I ran into a complaint about not using Inferno enough. The problem was finding a plot for him and I figured it out. Ever heard the phrase "fight fire with fire"? Good, you'll be seeing an example of it here.

* * *

Inferno sat at the Titans Tower mainframe, monitoring the city for any signs of illegal activity that was beyond the capabilities of the police. Granted, they had Nova Blue now, but technology could only go so far.

The young pyromancer stared at the screen darkly.

"Worried about that arsonist?" Samara's voice asked from behind him.

"Yeah," Inferno replied. "I haven't been able to catch up with him. Every time he sets one of his fires, I always arrive just a split second too late to catch him."

"Be careful," Samara advised dryly. "We already have two obsessive crime-fighters on the team, no need for three."

Inferno managed a brief snicker, only for his rising mood to be brought down by the blare of an alarm. He turned a grim stare upon the computer screen.

"Him," the pyromancer whispered, rising from his seat. Without another word, he rushed out of Titans Tower, wreathing his skin in a fiery sheath.

* * *

Old Jump City was the buildings and streets that had existed prior to the citywide renovation of 2015. Well, they were the buildings and streets that the bureaucrats had chosen to renovate over instead of renovating. Those buildings and streets that would not serve the purposes of the bureaucracy and its primary constituency had been abandoned, left to fall into disrepair. People had quickly moved out of those buildings and into the high-rises, but that took money and those that didn't have it were essentially left to rot in Old Jump City, cut off from the rest of the population.

Now . . . they were going to burn to death, all because of some maniac with a fire fixation.

Inferno had arrived in Old Jump City just in time to see it begin to burn. Concentrating, he began to absorb the flames, hoping to either drain them all or – more likely – just reduce them enough for him to get the residents out.

He absorbed as much fire as he could, but there was so much of it – and he felt like he was starting to overheat. He persisted, though, soaking up as much fire as he could. It hurt, it seared his insides, but he couldn't let those people die just because of his own weakness.

Eventually, the flames began to dissipate. They were still there, but more manageable now. The bad part was . . . he felt like he was ready to explode.

Taking off into the sky, Inferno let out a scream of agony as the fire he had absorbed burst from him in a harmless explosion in the sky. Well, it would be harmless as long as there were no planes within the radius of his detonation.

The pyromancer was left breathing heavily as he began to plummet from the sky, his containment suit ripped from the strain of containing all of that fire. He would have summoned his flame to protect himself, but he was so tired. . . .

A cushion of black energy formed beneath him and he landed on it. He turned on his side, looking up to see Samara kneeling beside him.

"It's ok," she murmured. "You can rest now."

"Old Jump," he muttered. "The people . . ."

"Rest," she whispered. "The others are putting out the fire right now."

Inferno simply closed his eyes, allowing himself to fall into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

When the pyromancer woke up, he was in his bed and his room. It didn't take long for him to realize he was nude, as he felt nothing against his body except for his sheets.

"Ugh . . . what's going on?" he asked.

"We had to remove your containment suit," Samara replied. "Since it was damaged and all. Apparently, even with the mystical edge to your fire control, you still have limits to how much you can actually absorb."

"Is everybody in Old Jump ok?" Inferno asked.

"Yeah," Samara answered. "You managed to absorb enough of the fire so that nobody got killed."

"What about the asshole who started that fire?" Inferno questioned.

"We couldn't find him," Samara admitted. "But we know something now."

"What's that?" Inferno inquired.

"Nightstar, Bladefire, and Beast Girl couldn't smell any accelerants," Samara answered. "A fire of that magnitude without any accelerants?"

"A meta," Inferno said. "Powers like mine. I bet it's that Blaze freak."

"Possibly, but why this?" Samara asked.

"He's a lunatic," Inferno replied, as though that were reason enough. "When do I get my suit back?"

"When it's repaired," Samara answered. She smiled mischievously at Inferno and climbed into bed with him.

"You do realize I'm naked, right?" Inferno asked with false modesty.

"Yes," Samara answered. "And right now that's just fine by me."

"Then why are you still dressed?" Inferno asked.

"I'll remedy that very soon . . ." Samara promised, descending upon him for a kiss.

* * *

Morning came and Inferno awoke to the sight of Samara in his arms, every bit as naked as him. He idly stroked her arm.

"We . . . have to get up," he muttered.

"Do we?" Samara asked quietly.

"Yeah," Inferno replied. "Breakfast."

"Oh," Samara said, rising from the bed and teleporting into her personal bathroom to take a shower. Inferno found a robe and donned it, quickly following his partly demonic lover into the shower. "Couldn't wait, huh?"

"Why waste water?" Inferno asked.

"You have a point," Samara replied.

* * *

After the lovers had showered and dressed, they joined the other Titans at the breakfast table, only to find a guest waiting for them. This guest wore crimson with a yellow circle surrounded by a white symbol spreading to cover his shoulders and white gloves and boots, his face concealed by a white-fronted red mask with yellow lenses.

"Inferno," the red-clad man greeted in a scratchy voice. "We need to talk."

"About what?" Inferno asked. "Who are you, anyway?" He looked at the other Titans. "And did any of you let him in?"

"Actually, I let myself in," the man replied. "Let your girlfriend read my emotions. She'll sense I don't mean you harm."

Without being asked to, Samara read the man's emotions. Nothing she sensed gave her the impression that he meant to hurt any of them.

"He's telling the truth," she said.

"Still remains that he's here and he hasn't even told us his name," Inferno said.

"It's Phoebus," the man replied.

"How did you know how to find me?" Inferno asked.

"The Consumed connects all of us," Phoebus replied.

"The Consumed?" Inferno questioned.

"The Consumed is the primal energy that connects all of us who have the power to manipulate flame and heat," Phoebus answered.

"You're a pyrokinetic?" Inferno asked.

"Yes," Phoebus replied.

"Do you know who's causing all of these fires?" Inferno asked.

"I know it is not the one you refer to as Dr. Blaze," Phoebus replied.

"Then who is it?" Inferno inquired.

"The one you know as Firefly," Phoebus replied.

"Firefly?" Nightstar asked. "He uses tech, not metahuman powers."

"That's changed," Phoebus stated. "He has become connected to the Consumed and to all of us who wield fire."

"If he's connected to the Consumed, then does that mean we can find him?" Inferno asked.

"Possibly," Phoebus replied. "However, tracking him through the Consumed will not be an easy task."

"Why?" Inferno asked. "You found me."

"Yes," Phoebus acknowledged, "I did."

"Then why can't you find him?" Inferno asked.

"He is new to the Consumed," Phoebus replied. "He was not born to it the way you and I were. He was forcibly connected by some external source, which makes his power unstable and therefore hard to track."

"Unstable how?" Inferno questioned, not liking where this was going.

"He's going to burn out," Phoebus answered bluntly. "And when he does, he could take this entire city with him. We need to find out who gave him this power."

"There's a whole bunch of mad scientist-types who have been experimenting with meta-gene therapy," Bladefire said. "As well as governments that would be more than happy to have metahuman soldiers to fight their wars for them."

"Yes, the arms race of the 21st century is now all about the _living_ weapons," Phoebus remarked dryly. "That's what the humans see us as: potential weapons to be wielded to their benefit, and discarded if proven uncontrollable." He looked at Inferno. "I'm going to have to teach you how to commune with the Consumed."

"How?" Inferno asked.

"Follow me," Phoebus replied, exiting Titans Tower and beginning to take to the sky. Inferno heated the air around him until it created enough lift for him to fly. The two fire wielders soared into the city, flying above it until Phoebus spotted a Shinto temple. He began to descend toward it, Inferno following.

* * *

When they landed, Phoebus looked at Inferno. "It's a good idea we both take off our shoes. The girl running this place doesn't like people scuffing the floor with their shoes."

"Sure," Inferno said, removing his sneakers. Next to him, Phoebus removed his boots, revealing creamy brown feet. The two fire elementals entered the shrine.

Immediately upon entering, they were greeted by the sight of a girl in white-and-red temple robes. Her hair was black and long with purple gloss and her eyes were lavender.

"Hello, Phoebus," she greeted. "Who is your friend?"

"His name is Inferno," Phoebus replied.

"Hello," Inferno greeted. "What's your name?"

"My name is Makoto Hino," the girl answered. "What is your purpose for coming?"

"He is here to learn how to commune with the Consumed," Phoebus replied for Inferno.

"You wish to divine with the flames the location of your enemy," Makoto deduced.

"Yeah," Inferno confirmed.

"Then I give you use of the flames within my temple," Makoto allowed.

She escorted Inferno and Phoebus to the fireplace, where a fire was currently burning. Inferno kneeled before the flame, as did Phoebus.

"Look deep into the flame, Inferno," Phoebus advised.

"I'm looking at it already," Inferno said.

"Do not look with your eyes," Makoto said. "Look with your soul, instead."

Inferno gazed deep into the flame, feeling his heart beat with his gaze. He concentrated on the beat of his heart and the warmth of the flame. The beat of his heart seemed to synchronize with the flicker of the flame.

With a start, Inferno realized he could see Firefly in the flames. He could see every detail, from the black suit to the yellow backpack that resembled an insect's thorax to the yellow mask with insect-like red eyes.

"I see him!" Inferno exclaimed.

"Good," Phoebus replied. "Now look deeper."

Inferno suddenly snapped out of the fiery vision.

"What did you see?" Phoebus asked.

Inferno looked at his fellow firestarter and began to speak. "I saw a lab, with the letter "L" inscribed on a wall. There were canisters, vials, a delivery system for the chemicals in those canisters and vials."

"L," Phoebus said. "L as in Luthor. Lena Luthor. What else did you see?"

"That I'd better start looking in Metropolis," Inferno replied.

"I was referring to what you saw concerning Firefly," Phoebus clarified.

"He's going to strike again," Inferno replied. "These fires over the past week, they were just tests. This time coming, it's going to be the real thing."

"Where will he strike?" Phoebus asked.

"He's going to torch Wayne Biotech," Inferno answered. "Tonight."

"Then we'll be there to stop him," Phoebus replied.

* * *

Night fell. The white neon identifying the biotech lab as affiliated with Wayne Enterprises shone brightly in the darkness. Its purpose was to reverse-engineer alien biotechnology for the sake of creating antibodies to diseases that ravaged the human race. Should this reverse engineering ever succeed, many diseases thought of as incurable – or only curable at great risk – could be eradicated in the blink of an eye. So much good could be accomplished with this, so why would somebody want to destroy it?

Vengeful spite certainly played a role. After all, this company was run by the man who had ruined Lex Luthor, the father of Lena Luthor. This company was run by the man who, in his costumed identity, had befriended the damned alien that dared to hover above Metropolis like he was some kind of god.

And that was why Firefly was here. On behalf of the woman who had gifted him with his newfound power, he would destroy this place. Burn it to the ground.

He really didn't care what Lena Luthor wanted. He didn't really care about her reasons for wanting Wayne Biotech gone. He had the opportunity to burn something . . . and he would see the beauty that called to him from within the flames. The goddess that tempted him to come to her side every time he so much as lit a match. It was for her that he did this, not for Lena.

His fists ignited into red-orange flame and he was ready to obliterate the infrastructure of Wayne Biotech, leaving the building to collapse on itself, when twin bolts of flame struck him.

Firefly let out an "uhh" as he went down. He quickly got up, looking for his attackers.

"Show yourselves!" he shouted.

"Up here!" a voice shouted.

Firefly looked up, seeing two figures floating high above him. One was dressed in skintight black with fire patterns decorating the left side of his suit and his exposed arms and head were covered in a fiery aura. The other was dressed in a red-and-white suit and mask and an aura of flame surrounded him.

"Get down here and face me!" Firefly yelled, outraged at the other two firestarters' attack.

"Why don't you come up here and face us?" Phoebus retorted. "Unless you don't know how to use your powers."

"I know how to use my powers!" Firefly shouted.

"How long have you had them, a week?" Phoebus asked. "Two?"

"Shut your mouth!" Firefly roared, shooting a giant fireball up at Phoebus, who simply absorbed it as soon as it touched him.

"Is that all you've got?" Phoebus asked. "But you're new, so I'll forgive you. If you surrender quietly, I promise I won't hurt you that much."

"Asshole!" Firefly bellowed, shooting fire beneath his feet and using it to rocket himself into the air. While he was in the air, he rocketed toward Phoebus at high speed. Phoebus simply evaded the charge and grabbed Firefly by the scruff of his neck, absorbing the flame that he was using to keep himself aloft.

"You're going to talk now, Firefly," Phoebus said. "Where is the lab you got your powers from?"

"I'm not telling you jack, you bastard!" Firefly answered.

"I don't want you to tell me jack, I want you to tell me where the lab is," Phoebus said.

"Not telling you a thing!" Firefly declared.

"Fine," Phoebus conceded. "Just tell me who sent you here."

"Not telling you that, either, you turd!" Firefly responded.

Phoebus shrugged and dropped Firefly, who screamed as he plummeted.

"Aren't you going to catch him?" Inferno asked.

"He'll either save himself or he'll be a smear on the concrete," Phoebus replied calmly. "Judging by that trick he pulled to launch himself into the air, he'll be able to save himself. If not, that's his fault for not talking."

"You're a really callous a-hole, aren't you?" Inferno observed.

"When I have to be," Phoebus answered. He looked down and sighed, extending a fiery construct shaped like a hand to grab Firefly, solidifying it just before it caught him. He then used the construct to pull Firefly up until the pyromaniac-turned-pyrokinetic was level with him. "_Now_ are you going to talk?"

"After what you just did?" Firefly asked. "Hell, no."

"Want me to drop you again?" Phoebus asked.

"No, no, no!" Firefly replied emphatically.

"Then you'll talk," Phoebus concluded. "Or I'll drop you again. And this time, I won't catch you. Don't tempt me. I'm not in the mood."

"Fine," Firefly groaned. "It was Lena Luthor. Her lab is in Metropolis!"

"What is she doing?" Phoebus asked.

"I don't know what she's doing!" Firefly answered. "I don't know! She just started picking up guys like me, non-meta crooks, and experimenting on us!"

A low rumble of anger emanated from Phoebus and the yellow lenses concealing his eyes began to flicker.

"Where in Metropolis is it?" Inferno asked. "You'd better talk, because my friend here? He looks pissed off. Very, very pissed off. And considering that he quite literally has your life in his hands, I wouldn't recommend antagonizing him any further."

"I don't know where in Metropolis it is!" Firefly replied. "She kept the location secret! Wouldn't let us see the outside of the building!"

"Then you're useless," Phoebus said coldly. "But no matter. You've given us enough to go by. You get to live."

Firefly breathed a sigh of relief . . . right before Phoebus dropped him again, at which point the sigh turned into a scream. Fortunately, Phoebus dove after him and projected a hard-flame platform beneath the pyromaniac on which to land.

"You bastard!" Firefly screamed. "You freaking bastard!"

"You keep calling me that," Phoebus groaned. "It's very hurtful."

* * *

After dropping Firefly off at the police department, and expressly informing the police to keep him in a flame-retardant cell, Phoebus flew to Metropolis, Inferno following.

"What was that about?" Inferno asked.

"Getting information," Phoebus replied.

"You could have killed him!" Inferno shouted.

"No, I wouldn't have," Phoebus contradicted. "And why do you care? He's a sick piece of garbage."

"Exactly," Inferno said. "He's sick, meaning that he has a disease, a disorder."

"Not what I meant," Phoebus answered. "The sickness I talk about is a sickness of the spirit. You can't cure that, no matter how hard you try. All you can do is make sure it doesn't spread."

"We'll never find the lab this way," Inferno said. "I suggest we go back to the Tower and see what we can find on the mainframe."

"I thought you didn't want me in your Tower," Phoebus mused.

The two firestarters turned around and flew back to Titans Tower.

* * *

As soon as Inferno and Phoebus were inside, the latter moved toward the Titans Tower mainframe, where he picked up the interface headset and slipped it on over his mask.

"You know how to use this?" Inferno asked.

"Yeah," Phoebus replied before searching cyberspace with the interface headset. "Luthor won't risk being caught, so she'll probably have her meta-gene labs owned by dummy corporations. The trick is tracing those dummy corporations to the real owners . . . and luckily for me, the Internet is not the best place to keep a secret."

After a while of intense searching, Phoebus removed the interface headset and looked up at Inferno. "I've found out where her little Frankenstein lab is. Time to go." Without waiting for Inferno, he exited Titans Tower and flew toward Metropolis.

Behind the masked firestarter, Inferno followed.

* * *

"You think we ought to notify any of the S-clan?" Inferno asked.

"Which one?" Phoebus asked. "Kal-El? Kon-El? Mia Cir-El? Superwoman? Steel?"

"I'm gonna go with Steel," Inferno replied. "We've worked together before, so I know he's good for it."

"Steel," Phoebus mused.

"What, you know him?" Inferno asked.

"Once," Phoebus replied.

When the two firestarters arrived in Metropolis, they made a detour to the urban area near the local university. On their way, they noticed a figure in silvery liquid metal armor with a modified S-shield – hexagonal rather than pentagonal – battling a group of thugs.

"We probably should help him," Inferno said.

"He knows how to handle himself," Phoebus said. "But all the same, it would be fun helping him thrash these guys."

Inferno took that as an agreement and shot down from the sky like a bullet, projecting flame beneath him and using it as a spinning platform for his father's patented "Twister Flame Kick" maneuver. Phoebus came down after him and made a thug's gun too hot for him to hold onto, following up with a punch that knocked him unconscious. Steel blasted three more thugs with a sonic pulse emanated by his hammer. Inferno took care of the final one with a hard-flame knife plugged into his gun.

"Crap! You're supposed to be a brother!" one of the thugs managed to shout from his position on the ground, sounding indignant.

"Brother!" Steel echoed with enraged derision. "Brother to a cockroach." He held the hammer in a swinging position, as though he was getting ready to bash the thug's head with it. "Brother to someone who makes it look cool to prey on other human beings! Tell me, is that the kind of person – I don't feel like regarding you as a human – I should call brother? _Is it?_"

He brought down the hammer next to the thug's head, his armor-fueled strength allowing him to make a considerable dent in the asphalt

The thugs got up – the ones that could get up, anyway – and ran for it.

"I'm gonna have to get that fixed," Steel muttered. "I always get carried away."

"Understandable," Phoebus said.

"Inferno?" Steel asked, only to turn around and see Phoebus _and_ Inferno. "Hey. Who's your friend?"

"Phoebus," the masked pyrokinetic replied.

"What brings you to the City of Tomorrow?" Steel asked in good humor.

"We were on our way to bust a meta-gene therapy lab," Inferno replied. "Lena Luthor's running it through a dummy corporation. We figured you'd want in on the action."

"You bet," Steel said. "Just lead the way."

Inferno and Phoebus took to the skies again, Steel following with rocket thrusters built into his boots. Once the rocket thrusters had launched him into the air, he activated an antigravity device in his suit that allowed him to stay in the air, the rocket thrusters maintaining his flight. In virtually no time whatsoever, they found what they had come to Metropolis to find.

* * *

"This is where the lab's located," Phoebus said. "I see a lot of heat signatures . . . but there's a blind spot. Must be someone being given cryokinesis."

The trio landed.

"Do we sneak in or do we make a dramatic entrance?" Steel asked.

"The lab's isolated," Inferno replied. "Lots of security."

"Then there'll be no use for stealth," Phoebus concluded. "That's fine. I like the direct approach."

"Take out the guards, but do it quietly," Inferno suggested. "We don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves."

Steel tapped a button on his hammer and it emanated a sonic pulse that lulled the guards into sleep.

"You said 'quietly,'" Steel said. "And this was quiet. Some sonic frequencies can actually make people sleepy. Now let's go."

The trio walked to the lab, free of any interference from the sleeping guards. Once they arrived at the door, they saw a camera pointing at them and a handprint identifier pad that opened the door.

"So much for the quiet approach," Inferno mumbled. He created a hard-flame sword and used it to slice through the door, quickly gaining entry into the lab. Once inside, Phoebus and Steel followed. "They know we're here."

"A fight, then," Phoebus concluded.

"Got that right," a voice rumbled from above the masked pyrokinetic, who looked up to see a veritable giant of a man – about seven feet tall – staring down at him. His hair was a shaggy black and his skin and eyes were white as chalk, perfectly complementing black rags.

Two others joined the giant, one being a woman with white hair and pale blue skin dressed in a blue parka and little else. The other was a man who seemed to be in constant motion, as appearing in multiple places at once implied.

"You must be Lena's little lab rats," Phoebus scoffed. "Mind telling me your names before I beat you to within an inch of your lives?"

"Skulk," the giant stated.

"Permafrost," the white-haired, blue-skinned woman spoke.

"Blur," the constantly moving man said.

Inferno grinned. "I'll take Frosty. Steel, you handle Skulk."

"I suppose that means I'll be taking Blur," Phoebus mused.

Permafrost made the first move, draining the heat from her surroundings. Skulk charged Steel and Blur began attacking Phoebus from almost literally all sides.

Inferno flared up, emanating enough heat to counter Permafrost's cold. The heat had the added effect of making Permafrost sweat and moan in pain.

"You know what they say," the pyromancer remarked. "If you can't take the heat . . ."

Permafrost fired a desperate blast of cold at Inferno, only for it to be overwhelmed by a blast of heat from him. The concentrated heat was too much for the cryokinetic and she passed out.

Meanwhile, Blur was running around Phoebus pummeling him . . . until Phoebus lashed out with an aura of flame that Blur had to dodge. Blur charged at Phoebus, who slid low to kick the speedster's feet out from under him. Unfortunately, Blur moved out of the way and kicked Phoebus.

Phoebus tried to get up, only to be assaulted by a series of hyper-fast, brutal punches. He tried to block as many as he could, but Blur was moving exactly like his name would suggest. Finally, the masked pyrokinetic generated a fiery aura that threw Blur off him. Phoebus charged, exciting the atoms around him to generate an aura of heat that lightened his body and thus granted him enhanced speed. With that enhanced speed, he pummeled Blur until the speedster passed out.

Steel and Skulk traded blows, Skulk being stronger but Steel's armor dispersing the force of the giant's punches. Plus, Steel was lighter on his feet than Skulk, so he could stay out of the giant's way.

"Stay still!" Skulk roared.

"How about . . . no?" Steel answered, swinging his hammer at the giant to crack him across the face. To his satisfaction, the strike staggered Skulk, who roared in anger and attacked him again, only to be struck again. Steel pressed a button on his hammer to emit a sonic pulse that put the giant to sleep. "Sleep tight."

The trio regrouped.

"What do we do with this place?" Steel asked.

"Destroy it," Phoebus replied.

"But there could be more test subjects in there!" Inferno protested. "What about them?"

"What _about_ them?" Phoebus echoed, generating a hard-flame sphere. He was about to throw it when Inferno knocked it out of his hands. The sphere landed on the ground . . . and detonated, creating a massive explosion that knocked all three of them into the far wall.

Inferno looked around and saw fire everywhere. "What have you done, you bastard?"

Phoebus chuckled. "What have _I_ done? You're the one who knocked it out of my hand."

"A firebomb, huh?" Steel remarked. He pressed another button on his hammer and emitted sonic bursts that muffled the flames.

"The place is wrecked, anyway," Inferno observed. "It'll take a while for Luthor to set it up again."

"She will," Phoebus snarled, departing from the ruined lab. Inferno followed him, heat emanating from him in his rage. "What, Inferno?"

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" Inferno spat.

"I have to be," Phoebus replied. "Luthor took a lot from me. Took my friends, my family, the woman I loved . . ." He turned to Inferno. "Mark my words, Inferno. A storm is coming. This is just the calm preceding it. Be ready."

He disappeared in a flash of flame.

Inferno looked at the smoke that marked where Phoebus had been, Steel coming up behind him.

"Are you all right?" the armored young man asked.

"I don't know," Inferno replied.

* * *

In the penthouse office at the top of Lexcorp's Metropolis headquarters, a woman – probably in her early twenties – sat upright in a leather-backed chair, green eyes glittering with fierce intelligence and ambition. Currently, those eyes were staring at a vid-phone as the scientist in the screen spoke to her.

"The lab was severely damaged," he said. "It looks like a firebomb."

"The specimens," the woman cut in, smooth menace in her voice. "Are they undamaged?"

"For the most part," the scientist answered, "although there was considerable damage to the support equipment."

"Repair the equipment, then continue the project," the woman spoke.

"Yes, Ms. Luthor," the scientist replied before ending the communication.

Lena Luthor looked at the empty screen of the vid-phone. She was at a delicate stage in her project and continued interference would derail said project. It appeared she would have to increase security at her labs. After all, if the responsible party had managed to find one lab, who knew if he or she would find the others?

Her project would bear fruit, though, and that fruit would be the weapon that put an end to the so-called demigods that dared to call this world their own.

* * *

Phoebus had returned to Jump City and to Makoto's shrine.

"Why didn't you tell him?" she asked.

"About?" Phoebus prompted.

"Who you really are," Makoto answered.

"If he knew," Phoebus spoke, "he would be too shocked for words. Besides, I couldn't afford to tell him my identity. It's not wise for someone to know too much of their future, especially when it's a future that still has a chance to be averted."

"As you wish," Makoto whispered, "Jeremiah."

* * *

End Notes: What a shocker! Bet you didn't see that coming!

To explain, what's happened in this chapter is actually a prelude to the final arc of this series. Lena Luthor will play an important role in that arc as one of the main antagonists to not just the Titans, but the entire hero community. Her meta-gene experimentation will also be an important part of the final arc.

The Steel that appeared in this chapter is John Henry Irons II, the son of Natasha Irons, niece to John Henry Irons, who is the Steel of DC comic and animated canon. In case you don't know, John Henry Irons was inspired to become Steel after Superman saved his life. During the time Superman was dead (way back in 1993, give or take a year), Irons donned a suit of armor and fought crime in Metropolis, being dubbed by the media as "The Man of Steel." When Superman came back, he dubbed Irons "Steel."

(Note that John Henry Irons II is my creation.)

Steel's mini-rant about brothers and cockroaches was inspired by a similar tirade from Nighthawk in Marvel's newest incarnation of Squadron Supreme, which is essentially a pastiche of the Justice League. Nighthawk, as you may have guessed from the name, is a Batman pastiche: what Batman might have been like if he was African-American and his parents were killed as the result of a hate crime.

As for Phoebus, the look and powers came from Kingdom Come but his identity came from me.

As I explained in an earlier story that referenced Lena Luthor, she is not an OC, but Lex Luthor's daughter from the late 90s Superman comics and who has not been seen since an arc involving Brainiac 13. It's a long and complex story that I don't recall all the details to, so I'm not gonna bother telling it to you.

Anyway, you're free to tell me what you thought of this story. It's my first piece in which Inferno is the main character, so Duncan McGregor, I hope you like it.


	35. East: Congregate

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 5: "East"

Chapter 1: "Congregate"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Red Hood, Tsunami (Cerdian), Darkstar, and Kid Flash do not belong to me, either; they are all owned by DC Comics. Micron is borrowed from Batman Beyond, which is the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The incarnation of Flamebird that appears in this story is mine, but the original concept belongs to DC Comics. Succubus is the only character here that is actually mine.

Author's note: It's long past time I formed the Titans East of the Future Storm timeline. Speedy's/Arsenal's and Aqualad's/Tempest's children will be in here, of course, and I'll be doing something to gratify you Speedy/Aqualad enthusiasts who might be reading. Of course, the children of other Titans will be getting my attention, too.

A mild warning; the characters you've grown adjusted to will not be appearing in this. This whole arc belongs to the Titans East. Hopefully, I will do a good enough job characterizing them that you'll come to like them, anyway. They won't be total strangers, though; Red Hood appeared in the first side story I did, Tsunami/Cerdian had a cameo in the Christmas side story, and Kid Flash appeared in Mercury's arc.

Anyway, enough talk. Time for the action.

* * *

It was night in Steel City and not a mouse was stirring. Still, there were plenty of humans engaging in various activities. Some were drinking in bars, either hanging out with their friends or looking for someone to take home for the night. Others were doing much the same, only in nightclubs. Everyone, young and not so young, seemed ready for a good time.

The girl stalking the rooftops ought to be just like them. She ought to be dancing the night away in some club while young men bought her drinks in an attempt to convince her to go home with them. In all honesty, she might have preferred to be doing exactly that. However, there were things more important than dancing in clubs and getting laid . . . such as stopping a carjacking.

Below her, a stereotypically dressed young tough had pinned an older man to his car and was whispering threats in his ear. Those threats were emphasized by a gun pressed to the temple of the man's forehead. All this she could see perfectly because of the visual augmentation provided by her sunglasses. The girl pressed a device in her ear that filtered the sounds below until she could clearly hear what the tough was saying.

"Give me your keys, and you get to keep your brains in your head."

The girl pulled out her bow and the sound of clacking accompanied its unfolding itself to full size, complete with an energy string. She pulled an arrow out of her quiver and nocked it, pulling the string back. She aimed the arrow at the gun . . . and released. The arrow flew, swift and precise, and struck the gun with nearly unnatural accuracy, knocking it out of the thug's hand and causing him to yell, "What the hell?"

"Score," the girl whispered, shortly before climbing down from the rooftop, quickly and quietly. As she moved, the man opened his door and tried to get in, but the thug struck him down and took his car keys. He got into the car, shut the door, and started the car, driving away with no regard for the condition of the car's actual owner. The girl quickly ran to the man's side and asked, "Are you all right?"

"He took my car," the man groaned.

"I saw," the girl spoke and in the streetlights, her outfit could be seen. It appeared to be Nomex/Kevlar interwoven with leather, styled as a dark red jacket vest with a hood over her head and black pants with red guards on the insides of the thighs. Black archer's gauntlets covered her arms and black buckled boots covered her calves and feet. The hood did not conceal any of her facial features, but mirrored sunglasses covered her eyes and curly red-orange locks could be seen past the hood. A quiver full of arrows rested on her back and a holster for a crossbow was strapped to her right thigh.

This was Lian Harper, born to master marksman and current government liaison Roy Harper – formerly known as Speedy and Arsenal – and master assassin Jade Nguyen, alias Cheshire. Right now, that wasn't the name to which she answered. Right now, she was the Red Hood and she was ready to take down a carjacker.

A red customized motorcycle tore through the streets of Steel City, Red Hood riding it. "Track license plate number 457-25Z," she ordered the onboard computer in her cycle. The computer accessed the GPS, using it to locate the car identified by that particular license plate number. A map appeared in the small screen, showing her where the car was.

Red Hood sped up, making a hard right and finding herself almost literally on top of the stolen car. The thug made a yelp of surprise and slammed the accelerator, driving as fast as the car could go regardless of the drivers in his way. Red Hood rode after him, easily matching his speed and weaving seamlessly between cars. She pulled out her crossbow and pointed it right at the thug, aiming at his face. The thug tried to get away from her, but he could go no faster.

At the last second, she pointed the crossbow at a tire of the stolen car and fired, perforating said tire. The tire flattened, causing the car to careen to a stop. Red Hood rode up to the car and halted in front of the stolen car, removing herself from her motorcycle. She pulled out her bow and unfolded it to its full size, nocking an arrow in preparation.

"Come out of there," she said. "You've got nowhere to run and the police will be here soon."

The thug reluctantly removed himself from the car. He didn't look like he was going to run, and his gun had been taken out of the equation earlier. In fact, it seemed as though he was weighing his options, if he indeed had more than one. Finally, he let out a sigh of defeat, knowing he was beaten. When the police came, he surrendered himself into their custody without so much as a whimper.

One of the arresting officers turned to Red Hood and asked, "What brings you to Steel City?"

"Change of scenery," Red Hood answered nonchalantly, straddling her motorcycle and riding away. Unbeknownst to her and the arresting officers, there was a burning shadow watching her.

* * *

Just off the East Coast, someone rose from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, making his way across the water and onto a sandy beach. It was night, so hardly anybody was around . . . except for that one couple that wanted the literal meaning of "Sex on the Beach." Just as the man was about to remove the woman's swimsuit, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye and turned to look. However, there was no one visible, so he returned his focus to his lover.

Just past them, the mysterious entity that had risen from the ocean kept moving. As he moved further and further into the light of civilization, his features became more and more apparent. He appeared to be a boy in his late teens, probably no older than eighteen. Wet black hair was matted to his head, partly obscuring violet-black eyes. A black-and-blue wetsuit-like garment, the blue starting below the shoulders and ending at the hips with a wave-like pattern separating the two colors, clung to his sinewy swimmer's frame.

This boy was Cerdian, born to the mage-king of the underwater kingdom Shayaris, who was none other than former Teen Titan Garth. He was on the surface because Garth had asked him to go, telling him that something would happen very soon and it would happen in Steel City. Garth hadn't given him anything even vaguely resembling a clue as to what that something was, only telling him that it would happen in Steel City.

Unfortunately, from this point forward, there would not be a lot of water. True, there were rivers, but the distances between those rivers were relatively great and Cerdian was not looking forward to traversing them. He was extremely fast on the surface, but that speed wasn't nearly as great as his speed when in contact with water. To make things worse, he was presently in the state of New Jersey and Pennsylvania – the state in which Steel City was located – was a considerable distance from New Jersey.

Suddenly, he began to laugh, scaring the merry crap out of everybody near him. Somebody even shouted at him, "What the hell are you laughing at, you crazy kid?" Cerdian ignored the shout, though; he was too busy realizing just how absent-minded he'd been. He was a mage, damn it; he could just make a portal to Steel City!

His laughter having died down, he generated a spell-portal and stepped through it, entering Steel City. Now that he had arrived in the city his father had once defended as a founding member of the Titans East, he would have to figure out what was going to happen here. Unbeknownst to him, a burning shadow watched, watched and waited.

* * *

The next morning, a red blur exited Keystone City, rocketing eastward. If someone had sharp enough senses to keep up with that blur, they would have seen a redheaded girl dressed in a black leather jacket over a skintight red suit with vestigial sleeves. A silver lightning bolt extended from the left shoulder and down to just above where her belly button would be. Silver lightning bolts extended down the outsides of her legs. A pair of sunglasses with silver lenses and lightning-styled ear stems covered her eyes.

Iris West, alias Kid Flash, was on her way to Steel City and she was carrying a package. In addition to being a superhero, she was also the super-speed equivalent of a bike messenger. It was a good way of making money and she was still helping people, so it wasn't exactly a dishonest thing. Of course, the old fuddy-duddies her dad knew from his Justice League days had nagged her about it, but that was because they were old fuddy-duddies.

Arriving in Steel City, she stopped in front of a house and rang the bell. Within the space of seconds, a teenage boy answered the bell. He looked her up and down with disbelief in his eyes. "Holy . . . you're Kid Flash!"

"Yeah, that's me," Kid Flash replied with a grin. "Is Mr. Schrodinger here?"

"Yeah, my dad's here," the boy answered. He moved aside and allowed a man that resembled an older version of him to come to the door.

"Here's your package, Mr. Schrodinger," Kid Flash greeted cheerfully, handing him the package. She also held out an electronic pad with an electronic pen. "Sign here."

Mr. Schrodinger signed and returned the pad to Kid Flash. "Thank you very much, Kid Flash."

"You're welcome!" Kid Flash answered. "Have a nice day!" She sped away from the house, thinking that it was about time she paid a visit to her old friend Lian. After that, she might stick around to check out the sights. All in all, it seemed to be a nice day . . . if she wasn't aware of the hidden shadow watching her.

* * *

Back in Star City, a boy in his late teens – no older than 17, most likely – neared to a familiar three-story house. The boy had short red-blond hair and crystal blue eyes. He was of roughly average height, maybe slightly taller, and dressed in a red jacket over a pale blue shirt and black pants. This boy was none other than Bobby Troy Long and he was on his way to see his mother and new stepfather, Donna and Roy Harper.

Bobby knocked on the door and was soon greeted by Donna, who hugged him tightly. She didn't hug him so tightly that it killed him, although he was more durable than the average teenager, but it was strong enough to definitely be felt.

"Hi, Mom," he greeted.

Donna released him, holding him at arm's length so she could get a good look at him. After discerning that there was nothing particularly out of place about him, she told him, "Come in."

Bobby entered the house, where he was greeted by Roy. "Hey, squirt. You actually grew a bit while you were away."

"I didn't notice," Bobby remarked dryly.

Donna grabbed Bobby's hand and looked at the knuckles, seeing bruises on them. "You had a really rough mission, didn't you?"

"That, and . . ." Bobby looked down, not wanting to meet his mother's eyes. ". . . I got into a fight with a Green Lantern."

"How did you get into a fight with a Green Lantern?" Donna asked in that mixture of concern and reproach for which mothers were infamous. She looked him dead in the eyes, letting him know that there was no way he could squirm out of this.

"We had a disagreement," Bobby stated. "One thing led to another and the next thing I know, we're trading punches."

"Did he fight dirty?" Roy asked.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Donna asked.

"I'm just curious," Roy answered.

"We both fought dirty," Bobby admitted. "He took off his ring and I deactivated the enhancements in my exo-mantle. Then we went at it and . . . let's just say he looked worse than me when I left him."

"I know that the Darkstars and the Green Lanterns don't get along, but I don't think any kind of peace is going to be achieved between them with you getting into fights with Green Lanterns," Donna remarked with wry disapproval.

"I didn't start the fight," Bobby protested lamely. Sighing, he went on. "Of course, that's not really much of an excuse."

"Are you . . . still angry about what I did to you?" Donna asked.

"Frankly, yes," Bobby replied. "Perhaps that's why I joined the Darkstars in the first place. Perhaps that's why . . . I did a lot of things. I don't hate you, Mom. Never could." He turned to Roy. "Thanks . . . for helping me get my head on straight and for taking care of my mom." A smile came to his face. "Now where's my new sister?"

"She went to Steel City," Roy replied. "Gonna be attending university there."

"All the way across the country?" Bobby asked in disbelief.

"Yeah," Roy confirmed. "I shouldn't be worried. I mean, Lian can take care of herself . . ."

"You're her father, Roy," Donna said. "Of course you're worried."

"I think I'm gonna pay Lian a little visit," Bobby said.

As the young Darkstar flew across the country to Steel City, he took no heed of anything except seeing Lian. He did not even notice that there was someone following him. Whoever it was, it seemed able to keep up with his every motion, no matter how fast he went. It was hidden from his senses and that was what it preferred.

* * *

In Steel City that night, a blonde girl leaped from rooftop to rooftop, her agility and strength carrying her safely to each one. She wore a red suit made from carbon nanotubes, a flame-like yellow V shape crossing her chest. She wore darker red elbow-length gloves and thigh-high boots with flame-like edges, as well as a utility belt made of linked yellow disks. Her identity was concealed by a red bird-like mask that protected her eyes with goggle-like lenses.

It didn't take her long to spot two ski-masked men trying to break into an ATM. One was trying to hack into the ATM's computer systems, while the other was acting as a guard. The would-be ATM hacker was wearing a closed black jacket and jeans, while his partner wore a closed duster, concealing nearly his entire body. She figured that the duster-wearing man might have concealed weapons on his person, hence the duster being closed.

She reached into her belt and pulled out twin red bird-styled shuriken, throwing them at separate points near the two would-be robbers. Said robbers-to-be looked around in panic. "What was that?" the guard asked.

"Nothing," the hacker replied. "Just watch my back."

The guard scanned the darkness for any interlopers, only to hear something clatter to his left. He turned to investigate it and was summarily tapped on his shoulder. He whirled . . . into a hard knee-jab that knocked the breath out of him. He looked up, only to see that his assailant was the girl who had been observing him. A quick chop to his neck put him down for the count.

The red-clad girl calmly strolled up behind the hacker and tapped his shoulder. The hacker practically screamed in terror and whirled for a futile assault, a futility confirmed by the girl grabbing his wrist in mid-punch and pinning him to a wall with surprising strength. She leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "You know, it's not nice to break into ATMs." That was his only warning before she brought her knee straight into his family jewels, causing him to crumple in pain.

After leaving an anonymous tip for the police, the girl fired a grappling hook at a nearby ledge and swung into the night. This girl was Liz Kane, alias Flamebird and the daughter of Bette Kane, the first crime-fighter to use the name, a name Liz strove to redeem. At that moment, she was going to find a certain archer who thought to encroach on her territory. Unnoticed by her or anyone else, a fiery shadow watched, biding its time.

* * *

Inside a bedroom in a modest two-story house, a teenage boy of approximately 15 or 16 years of age examined a gyroscope with which he'd been tinkering. His skin was fairly dark, sort of a cinnamon-chocolate blend, and his hair was styled in short dreadlocks. His voice, which was currently being used to speak to the flame-wielding Titan Inferno via vid-phone, was excited yet modulated.

"Looks pretty good from here," Inferno commented.

"Yeah," the boy, Drew James, agreed. "If I can just work out a few of the kinks . . ."

"It's ok," Inferno said. "You can do it, Drew."

"Hey, enough about me," Drew said. "How about you? When you contacted me, you said you'd figured out another way of using your powers."

"Phoebus showed me," Inferno explained. "The way it works is that I create a spherical hard-flame shell and fill it with fire. Then I compress the shell, which gives the energy inside less space in which to move. I compress the shell further to get it as small as I can make it, which traps all that energy. I throw the shell at a target and upon impact, the shell cracks and all that energy is unleashed in a massive explosion."

"I hope you're not going to use that on people," Drew spoke a bit warily.

"Not if I can help it," Inferno answered. "It's a bit overkill."

"A bit?" Drew asked. "Power like that, it's better used for demolitions. And I hope you don't make more than one of those things at a time."

"If I ever wanted to make a big explosion like in those mind-numbing action movies . . ." Inferno replied jokingly. "How's your summer treating you, shrinking violet?"

"You know I hate that name," Drew groaned good-naturedly.

"Sure you do," Inferno answered sardonically. "But it fits, since you can shrink."

"That's not all I can do, remember?" Drew asked. "If you keep messing with me like that, I might just become skyscraper height and crush you underneath my boot."

"Please," Inferno snorted. "I'd give you hotfoot."

Just then, Drew heard his mother shouting from downstairs, "Andrew Josiah James! Aren't you ever going to sleep?"

"In a few minutes!" Drew hollered back.

"You said that thirty minutes ago!" Drew's mother shouted. "Now tell Jeremiah you'll talk to him tomorrow! You have class in the afternoon! And tell him I said hello and good night!"

"My mother says hello and good night," Drew said to Inferno. "And I've gotta sleep now. Mother's orders."

"Makes me glad I don't live with my parents," Inferno chuckled. "Tell her I said hello. Night, Drew."

"Night, Jeremiah," Drew answered, ending the conversation by shutting off his vid-phone. He put aside his gyroscope and made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth before going to bed. Blissfully unaware of the fiery shadow watching him, he slept.

* * *

On the outside, Gen13 looked like any other nightclub, complete with a neon sign identifying it brightly, the colors electric blue and shocking pink. There was also the obligatory tall, muscular, and thus very imposing bouncer at the door, only said bouncer was female, red-haired, and her bare arms were covered in tattoos. Inside was very similar to a typical nightclub, with tables for people who wanted to sit down, a bar for people to sit and drink, and a large open area reserved for people who wanted to dance. The one significant difference was the clientele; namely, they were metahumans, all possessed of a superhuman ability or two.

At the center of the dance floor was a tall platinum blonde girl, moving gracefully and sensually to the pulse of the trip-hop/rock fusion booming from the speakers. A zip-up black corset restrained and emphasized her more-than-ample bosom, while leather briefs molded to the curves of her hips and backside. Thigh-high black boots encased her feet and legs and accentuated them at the same time. Her green eyes were heavy-lidded with the ecstasy of the dance.

She felt somebody come up behind her and heard that same someone whisper in her ear, "May I have this dance, _mademoiselle?_"

She chuckled and answered breathily, "Yes, you may have this dance . . . and maybe more if you're good, _monsieur._"

The platinum blonde felt the male behind her move in closer, placing his hands squarely on her leather-clad hips. He began to move to the music with her, grinding his pelvis against her shapely backside. If she was aware of this, she did not make any move to stop him or pull away. Instead, she continued dancing with him, even seeming to encourage him with the subtle shifts of her hips.

"Would you care to tell me your name?" the male asked.

"It's Lilim," the platinum blonde replied. "Yours?"

"Kale," the male answered. "Want a drink?"

"How about I treat you?" Lilim replied.

The two were sitting at a table sipping their respective drinks. Being not of drinking age, Lilim had gotten a nonalcoholic beverage, a simple lemon-lime soda. Kale, a brunet male just over the drinking age and dressed in a black jacket over gray clothes, was sipping a martini.

"I've heard of you," Kale said.

"Really? Tell me about myself," Lilim purred.

"They call you Succubus," Kale went on. "They say that one look into your eyes is enough to draw any man under your spell . . . and that they pay for it later."

"What about you, Kale?" Lilim asked. "Are you under my spell yet?"

Kale paused, examining Lilim with his eyes. Those eyes started from the top of her head, which was covered by long silver-blonde hair, and lowered themselves to her forehead, to her graceful pale eyebrows, and to her crystalline green eyes. Those eyes locked on his, staring into them, filling his mind with a temptation so powerful that he could not resist. Reluctantly, he lowered his eyes to the slope of her nose, to plump pale pink lips that were being licked by a dainty pink tongue. He swallowed.

"Do you want to go back with me?"

Lilim smiled. "Yes."

The next morning, Lilim awakened in a king-sized bed that wasn't hers, next to none other than Kale, who was in a dead sleep. She kissed him on the cheek, getting out of bed and going to shower. Once that was over with, she dressed herself again and left the hotel room and the sleeping Kale.

"Walking is so passé," she thought, concentrating on her newfound power. Almost immediately, she felt the wind lifting her up, faster and higher until she was over the skyscrapers and speeding across the sky. A smile crossed her face as she flew, merrily oblivious to the darkly burning entity hidden from the senses of would-be observers.

* * *

End Notes: Too bad there wasn't a lot of action. If there had been, I might have been able to pad this chapter out a bit. Then again, you might be grateful to me for not writing this chapter as long as I usually write my chapters. Fortunately, this is just the setup piece, where I introduce you to all the main characters.

Remember when I said that the main Titans wouldn't have a role in this? That's true, but that doesn't mean they won't make cameo appearances like in the case of Inferno with Drew.

Donna Troy, for those of you who don't know, was Wonder Girl, one of the original Titans in the comic universe. She was later known as Troia and Darkstar, but nowadays she's simply known as Donna Troy. The simple version of her origin is that she's the younger sister of Wonder Woman, but her origin is among the most complicated in the DCU. By the way, Donna made an appearance in the most recent issue of Teen Titans Go (the animated continuity comic book), so go read that.

Everything else I'll explain in due time. For now, just tell me what you thought of this chapter.


	36. East: Collide

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 5: "East"

Chapter 2: "Collide"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters Red Hood, Cerdian (Tsunami), Darkstar, and Kid Flash are the creative property of DC Comics, as is Micron via Batman Beyond and the concept of Flamebird. Succubus is mine, though.

Author's note: Hopefully, you all enjoyed seeing the young heroes who will form the Titans East, even if not all of them are clearly heroic. If you're wondering what's with the fiery shadow watching them, you'll get your answer here. In the meantime, everybody gets to meet up. Enjoy.

* * *

Cerdian was not having fun on the surface so far. First of all, he'd had to wander through Steel City looking for a place to stay so he could sleep. He'd found his way to a hotel with a pool, which was good for his Atlantean physiology, but he'd had to pay for it. Unfortunately, he didn't have surface world money, so he'd had to part with a doubloon salvaged from some sunken ship to compensate. Fortunately, the doubloon was rare enough that it granted him a considerable length of time to stay in the hotel while he got his bearings. The Atlantean boy didn't sleep in the bed in his room; he slept in the pool.

Morning came and Cerdian swam, still wearing the wetsuit-styled garment he'd been wearing when he first arrived on the surface. He performed seemingly endless laps through the pool, thankful for the treatment that made its water safe for him. The laps were his form of meditation, giving him a greater sense of tranquility and inner quiet. He needed that, especially if he was going to hold back the cursed power that burned within his veins.

After he finished, he rose from the water, only to see a teenage girl in what he vaguely recognized as a bikini. Her hair was dark blonde, streaked with an even darker color, and her bikini did not leave that much to the imagination. From his vantage point, she seemed tall, not quite as tall as him, but taller than average. Also, he noticed that she had an expression that while not quite a smile was nonetheless an expression of approval . . . and interest. He didn't have time for a girl to be interested in him.

"That was some great swimming," the girl said. "No, beyond great. It was like you were one with the water."

"That's because I _live_ in the water," Cerdian replied dryly and somewhat patronizingly. He began to move past her, but she gently grabbed his arm as though to halt him in his tracks. "Release me. Now."

"You staying long?" she asked. "I'm here all weekend. Room 310."

Cerdian sneered. "For all you know I could be some kind of rapist, murderer, or other kind of madman. And you insist on throwing yourself at me and telling me where you're staying. Do you find me attractive?"

"Not really, you jerk," the girl answered, letting go of Cerdian roughly. The Atlantean boy merely grunted and continued on his way, exiting the pool room and the hotel. He would have to find some surface clothes to wear; he didn't want to call too much attention to himself by wearing a wetsuit all the time. If he'd been at a beach, it would have raised far less suspicion, but he was not at a beach.

* * *

Cerdian found himself in a shopping mall, walking around looking for a clothing store. He passed by a music store, a DVD store, an electronics store, and even an ice cream store. None of those stores received more than an idle glance from him. After about ten minutes, he made his way into a clothing store that sold gothic attire. He scanned the items in the shop before turning to an employee and asking, "Is everything in here black or some shade of red or purple?"

The employee, a girl with fishnets covering her legs and a leather skirt molding to her hips, answered with a succinct, "Yeah, unitard boy."

Cerdian merely spared her a dark glance before moving into the stacks of clothes looking for something that would fit him. In the end, he chose several black shirts, one of them bearing a crimson bat emblem, several black pants, a studded belt, and a pair of buckled boots. After trying them all out and finding them suitable for him, he kept his favorite set of shirt and pants on and came out with the rest.

"I'll be buying all of these," he said, flipping a doubloon to her. "I trust this will be more than enough."

The employee bit the doubloon to make sure it was real gold. "I don't know how much this is worth, but I'm sure you could buy the entire store if you wanted. Anyway, let me bag all of that for you." She eyed him in his new attire. "You actually pull off that look pretty well, at least compared to all the posers that come in here."

Cerdian didn't pay attention to the compliment. He waited patiently until she had bagged all of his newly purchased clothes. Once she'd done that, he took the clothes and departed without a word, just barely hearing her mumble, "Bastard. But a cute bastard."

Now that the mage-prince had his surface clothes, he was ready to depart from the mall when he spotted a familiar head of curly red-orange hair. Without really thinking about it, he moved toward it, casually removing other shoppers from his path and not paying attention to their cries of discontent. They didn't matter to him; nothing mattered except possibly seeing the face that had become an ever-present feature in his dreams. When he finally reached the redhead, he grabbed her shoulder . . . and was summarily flipped onto his back.

"Cerdian, you've really got to learn how to approach people more politely," a familiar, snarky voice observed. "Lesson One: Never try to grab a girl from behind. Never. It leads to things like this happening to you."

Cerdian looked up and saw lime green eyes twinkling with mischief and lips upturned in a devious smirk. In the back of his mind, he observed that there was an audience watching, composed largely of women and the shoppers he had so casually moved aside on his single-minded quest. The women seemed rather appreciative of the girl's move, while the shoppers had rather satisfied "serves him right" looks on their faces.

"Lian," he greeted tersely. "How long has it been? Since the Christmas party?"

"Yeah, and you haven't been to see me since," Lian answered. She extended a hand, one that Cerdian gratefully took. She helped him to his feet with remarkable ease, given the fact that Atlantean bodies were denser than human bodies. "Has magic school kept you busy?"

"Yes," Cerdian replied. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" Lian asked.

Cerdian leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Not here." Lian got the hint and began walking quickly, easily balancing herself on the heels she was wearing. Cerdian followed her, muttering about the irrationality of high-heeled shoes and wondering how surface females could stand wearing them, much less walking in them. Fortunately, he was muttering too lowly for Lian to hear him; otherwise, he would have the archer's wrath to deal with.

Finally, she pulled him into a shop selling scented soaps and candles and turned to him. "Now what is it you wanted to tell me that you couldn't say out there?"

Cerdian leaned forward and whispered, "My father sent me. His mages received word of something happening here in this city. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that whatever it was, it wouldn't be good. You?"

"Attending college here in the fall," Lian replied.

"Why move all the way from Star City to here?" Cerdian inquired. "Wouldn't that keep you a considerable distance away from Mar'i?"

"I wanted a change of scenery," Lian answered. "And Mar'i flies really fast. She could be here in no time at all."

Cerdian shrugged nonchalantly as Lian got a good look at him. "Leather pants look good on you," she said.

"I'm glad you approve," Cerdian spoke tonelessly, beginning to walk out. Lian followed him, the clack of her heels resounding in his sensitive ears. The two teens wandered aimlessly through the mall. Cerdian wanted to leave, despite the fact that he had nothing better to do and Lian was right there. Speaking of Lian, he could smell her perfume and her underlying natural scent. It engulfed him and he felt that long-repressed obsession come forth again, keeping him near Lian like her shadow.

* * *

Elsewhere in the mall, Iris was in a CD store listening to thirty-second music samples, thumping her foot and nodding her head to the beat. She was so absorbed in the music that she almost didn't notice the redhead and the dark-haired boy walking past the entrance to the CD store. When she recognized them, she whipped her head toward them in a super-speed motion. She removed the headphones and dashed toward them, halting in front of them in less than a second.

"Iris!" the redhead exclaimed in surprise.

"Iris," the dark-haired boy echoed calmly.

"LianCerdianwhatsup?" Iris asked, her words coming out in a jumble.

"We're good," Cerdian answered simply.

"Thought you'd be back in Keystone by now," Lian said.

"Youwannagetridofmedontyou!" Iris shouted, sounding like a chipmunk given too much sugar. Just as Lian was about to stammer out an explanation that would appease her, she burst out laughing. "It's summer, and you're here, so I'm here!" She looked at Lian's feet. "Heels aren't good for you."

"You're just jealous I look good in them," Lian retorted, tongue out in a teasing expression.

Iris just ignored her and looked at Cerdian. "Never figured you for a Goth, but it looks good on you. How've you been, waterboy?" The answer she received was a noncommittal grunt. "Always cheery, aren't ya? Anyway, I've got another delivery to make and I've stalled long enough. See ya!" She dashed away in a blur of motion, changing into her costume as she ran.

* * *

In a midtown apartment that night, a nude Lian opened her bedroom wardrobe and reached past the front row of clothing to withdraw her costume. She pulled on the pants first, followed by the sleeveless jacket vest with her signature hood. On came the archer's gauntlets and knee-high boots, followed by the quiver and belt. She slid her crossbow into the belt holster and clipped her collapsible bow to the back of her belt. She put on her reflective sunglasses and raised her jacket vest's hood over her head.

Now that she was fully geared up, she exited her room via the window, rappelling with the aid of a grapple arrow down to the apartment complex's parking lot. She found her motorcycle, unmolested due to its taser-based security system, and straddled it. She started the motorcycle and rode out of the parking lot and into the streets of Steel City.

Red Hood sped through the city, just looking for trouble. She wasn't looking to get _in_ it, although that could be potentially fun. She was simply looking to _stop_ it. As she rode, she got the feeling that the city was being annoyingly quiet. There was hardly a thing out of place, which somewhat irritated her as she was looking for some action.

_Oh, well,_ she thought. _At least just riding around like this will make people think twice before starting trouble here._

To her surprise, she felt a weight suddenly land on the back of her motorcycle. Red Hood nearly swerved into another car, but quickly regained her composure and kept riding. She turned to regard her stowaway with a wary expression beneath the visor of her helmet. "Flamebird, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Warning you," Flamebird replied. "Stay out of my city."

"Don't pull that Batman garbage on me," Red Hood answered, unable to help a brief chuckle. "What's the matter, Lizzie? Scared I'll steal your thunder?" Another chuckle issued from the archer upon hearing Flamebird's discontented growl. Just as the blonde vigilante was about to retort, a giant black fireball flew at both girls, who jumped off the motorcycle to evade it. The fireball destroyed the motorcycle and left a small crater in the street.

"What the unholy hell was that?" Flamebird asked.

"Look up," Red Hood replied.

The two girls looked up and saw something hovering above them. It resembled a shadow, only with fiery edges. Its eyes were red embers and its shape was androgynous. Other than that, it had no discernable or distinguishable features; it was just darkness given a humanoid shape. Terror trickled down Flamebird's spine as she looked upon it.

"Die," the shadow hissed in a genderless voice, sending a wave of black fire at the two girls, who sprang out of the way. Red Hood quickly pulled out her collapsible bow and unfolded it to its full size, nocking an arrow and firing it at the shadow. The shadow simply caught the arrow and snapped it in half. The arrowhead released a cryonic gas, freezing the shadow, only for the shadow to burn its way out. A blast of fire struck the shadow, eliciting a roar of anger from it. "So you reveal yourself, Fireheart!"

"Fireheart?" Red Hood echoed, turning to look at Flamebird. To her surprise, Flamebird's hands were smoking. "Flamebird? What's with the smoking hands?"

Flamebird didn't answer, the smoke around her hands igniting into flame. She projected that flame at the shadow, which created a barrier against which the flame harmlessly collided. The barrier then became a battering ram of black flame that would have struck down Flamebird had Red Hood not tackled her out of the way. Flamebird barely grunted a "thanks" before pulling out three birdlike shuriken and engulfing them in a fiery aura, throwing them at the shadow, which batted them aside.

"Is that all you can do against me, Fireheart?" the shadow asked.

Flamebird grimaced in anger and summoned fiery wings, using them to confront the shadow in the air. "What do you want with me?" she asked.

"To torture you," the shadow replied. "To break you. To ruin you. To kill you. That is what I want."

Flamebird's answer was another blast of fire, this one seeming to engulf and obscure the shadow. When it faded, the shadow was still standing and apparently outraged. It made that outrage known by waving his hand, the air rippling with his motion and knocking her out of the air. If not for Red Hood catching her, she would have had a very rough impact against the ground.

"Now aren't you glad I came to your city?" Red Hood asked cheerfully.

Flamebird merely groaned and pulled herself out of the red-clad archer's hold. She would have returned to attacking the shadow, but Red Hood grabbed her wrist, holding her back. "What are you doing?" Flamebird asked indignantly.

"Keeping you from ending up dead?" Red Hood answered sarcastically. "It's obvious that your powers – which you neglected to tell me about, by the way – aren't exactly stopping that thing, so just continuing to plug away isn't the best strategy."

"Are we supposed to run?" Flamebird suggested.

"Yes, running would be a good idea right now," Red Hood confirmed. "Running to get reinforcements, that is."

"And where are we going to find those reinforcements?" Flamebird questioned. "Well?"

The shadow lowered itself to the ground, casually strolling toward the two girls. It didn't seem to be in any hurry, but then it clearly presumed that neither heroine was in any way, shape, or form a danger to it. In truth, it didn't seem that there was much either of them could do to the shadow. Before it could attack, though, a maser blast halted it.

"Who dares?" the shadow asked. A blur of red raced around it, striking it so quickly that it was virtually invisible to the eyes of Red Hood and Flamebird. The shadow lashed out, sending the blur hurtling away from it. The blur stopped, now becoming visible as Kid Flash.

"Not very nice," the speedster said, snapping her fingers many times in the space of one second to set off multiple sonic booms with which to attack the shadow. The sonic booms did knock it off its feet, but other than that, they did not slow it down in the slightest. Before Kid Flash could react, the shadow had grabbed her in a telekinetic chokehold.

Red Hood pulled out her crossbow and fired a series of explosive bolts at the shadow, Flamebird engulfing the bolts in her flames to give them a little more "oomph." The combined attack didn't do that much damage to the shadow, but it disrupted the shadow's concentration enough to force it to release Kid Flash from its psychic death grip.

"Thanks," Kid Flash said.

"You're welcome," Red Hood responded.

Before the fight could continue, a spell portal opened and Cerdian stepped out of it. He was no longer in the clothes he had purchased from the gothic clothing store, instead wearing his usual wetsuit-like black-and-blue garment. His eyes shifted from dark purple to dead white as he looked at the shadow; even the pupils were no longer visible.

"Possession," he spoke.

"Possession?" Red Hood asked.

"Yes," Cerdian replied. "I see it. There are three entities melded to create this monstrosity. One is an ancient evil that has only now embodied itself. The second is a more human evil. The third is an innocent, an innocent somewhat tainted, but an innocent who is being used as a vessel for these evils."

"How did you see that?" Flamebird asked.

"The Clear showed me," Cerdian replied.

The shadow glared at Cerdian with burning eyes. "The Fireheart will die. You cannot stop that."

Just then, water burst forth from a nearby fire hydrant on Cerdian's mental command. Cerdian leaped into the air and jumped onto the spout of water, guiding it psychically in a surfing-style attack on the shadow. To his shock, the shadow transmuted the water into vapor. Cerdian recovered quickly, though, transforming the vapor into a needle-like hail of water particles that he directed at the shadow. The shadow snarled at him and waved its hand, causing the air to ripple and strike down the Atlantean mage-prince.

Cerdian's dead white eyes glowed and he shot a force beam from those eyes at the shadow, a beam that was almost effortlessly deflected. The shadow charged Cerdian in a blur of fiery motion, Cerdian barely able to block the attack. He grabbed the shadow by its forearm, holding it back from striking him. The shadow simply shot a fireball at Cerdian, knocking him away.

"Looks like I have no choice," the mage-prince muttered. His eyes glowed again and purple-white lightning began to gather in his right hand. He clenched his fist as the lightning concentrated itself around his hand, being molded into a blade.

"What do you expect to do with that little knife?" the shadow taunted.

Cerdian's answer was to run toward the shadow, the mystical lightning around his hand crackling. As he charged, the shadow rushed at him, black fire gathering in its hand in the form of a blade not unlike Cerdian's. The two combatants lunged past each other, striking simultaneously. Their respective elemental weapons dissipated, revealing that Cerdian had been sliced in the shoulder. The shadow seemed to be unharmed.

"Is that all you have?" the shadow taunted.

Red Hood, unable to take anymore, nocked three explosive arrows and fired them all at the shadow, which simply redirected them at her, Flamebird, and Kid Flash. The three girls dodged the explosive arrows and another maser blast was fired at the shadow. More maser blasts followed, raining down on the shadow like fire from Olympus. A vaguely humanoid blur flew at the shadow, assaulting it with swift and precise strikes. Unfortunately, the shadow grabbed its attacker and threw him a considerable distance. The attacker flipped in the air and turned his unwilling flight into an agile landing.

"Bobby!" Red Hood exclaimed.

"Right now, it's Darkstar," Bobby answered. He was dressed in the exo-mantle unique to the Darkstars, a crimson full-body suit with a silver fringe wrapped around the shoulders. A black starburst-like shape inside a white diamond covered his chest and his hands and most of his arms were encased in long white gloves. He turned to the shadow. "As for you, keep the hell away from my friends."

"Or what will you do?" the shadow asked.

"Something like this?" a female voice asked, as a powerful wind attacked the shadow, each individual air molecule striking like a sharp needle. The other young heroes turned to see a platinum blonde dressed in a zip-front corset and leather briefs along with thigh-high boots and elbow-length gloves. "And if that's not enough for you . . ." She waved her hand and a street lamp twisted itself, wrapping around the shadow and binding it. When the shadow saw her, it roared in fury and escaped from its bonds, attacking her.

Before the corset-clad girl could defend herself, Cerdian, Kid Flash, and Darkstar had interposed themselves between her and the shadow. Cerdian fired another force beam from his eyes, while Darkstar fired his masers. A warping aura manifested around the shadow, absorbing the blasts and seeming to transport them somewhere else. Kid Flash picked up a rock and threw it while simultaneously vibrating her hand into intangibility. Now charged with unstable kinetic energy, the rock became a grenade, but even that could not stop the shadow.

A large shadow covered all of the combatants, obscuring most of the light. A giant black-covered hand grabbed the shadow and picked it up. The six heroes looked up and saw a giant dressed in a black costume with red edges on the sides and insides of his arms. The traditional representation of the atom adorned his chest and his face was concealed by a black mask with large red lenses.

"You murdered my mother," the giant snarled, his voice booming throughout the area.

The shadow generated an aura of black flame that forced the giant to release it. Instead of immediately descending to the ground, the shadow grew in size to match that of the giant.

"If those two start fighting, the entire city could come down around everyone," Flamebird uttered in concern.

"Thank you, O mistress of the obvious," Red Hood drawled.

The giant seemed to realize this as well, as he shrank down to average human size. The shadow shrank as well, tilting its head in a movement that suggested it would be smirking if it had lips. "Do you have any useful powers other than size changing?"

The size changer braced himself for an attack, one that was blocked by a telekinetic force field thrown up in front of him by the corset-wearing girl. The shadow unfortunately pushed through the field, only to be blocked by another field behind the first. It pushed through that one, too, but a third field blocked it.

"You can't protect him forever!" the shadow shouted, just before an explosive arrow fired by Red Hood detonated upon contact with its back. With a scream full of spleen, the shadow turned on the archer, telekinetically throwing her around like a rag doll before she crumpled against a car. A groan of pain was the only sign that she was still alive.

The cursed power within Cerdian throbbed, begging to be freed of its restraints. This time, Cerdian was in no mood to fight it, having been driven to a rage by the sight of Red Hood's telekinetic beating. Burning patterns vaguely resembling both veins and spider webbing emerged on his face, crystallizing into an ebon color. Purple-black embers burned in his dead white eyes and a similarly colored aura emanated from him.

"Darkheart . . . round two," the mage-prince threatened.

* * *

End Notes: This is a pretty good place to end. I know cliffhangers are a bitch, but you're just going to have to deal with it, now aren't you?

If you're offended by Lian in the nude, think of it like nudity in PG-13 movies: You see enough to know they're naked, but you don't see the naughty parts.

If you're thinking that Cerdian's "cursed power" is a rip-off of the cursed seals in Naruto, you'd be wrong. Inspired, yes; rip-off, no. You'll see what I mean in the next chapter. Also, if you're wondering what's the deal with "Darkheart" and this mysterious "Fireheart" that Flamebird seems to possess/be, you'll get the answers to that as well. In the meantime, feel free to tell me what you think of what I've done so far.


	37. East: Clash

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 5: "East"

Chapter 3: "Clash"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me, and I do not make any profit from this story. The characters of Red Hood, Cerdian (Tsunami), Kid Flash, Darkstar, and Micron, along with the concept of Flamebird, belong to DC Comics and not me. Succubus I own, though.

Author's note: Everyone's together now. Unfortunately, the shadow entity that has been watching them has chosen to attack . . . and one hero has already been taken out of the picture for the moment, while another has abandoned the restraints on his darker powers. Who will win, if there is a winner? Let's see.

* * *

The other five remaining heroic combatants stared at Cerdian with horror in their eyes. Purple-black energy swirled around the Atlantean boy and his eyes were dead white, with black vein-like patterns spider-webbing over his face. The savage expression on his face was even more frightening, the look of a creature looking forward to inflicting as much harm as possible.

The Darkheart looked upon Cerdian's changed visage, laughing. "Do you really think you can take me, boy? Even with the cursed power percolating in your veins?"

Cerdian's only answer was the water that suddenly burst forth from the buildings on either side of him, the pressure shattering the windows. The water formed into a tidal wave, hovering above him and ready to crash down on his opponent. He smiled cruelly at the Darkheart before commanding the wave to slam it. The wave crashed down upon the Darkheart, but when it receded, the shadow entity was still standing and looking unharmed.

"Nice try, boy," the Darkheart sneered. "My turn." The shadow entity materialized a fiery sword and brought it down on the ground, sending a slicing wave of black fire toward Cerdian. Unfortunately for the Darkheart, the water from the tidal wave formed a protective barrier around Cerdian, dissipating the slicing flame. Undeterred, the Darkheart called forth a rain of black fire, intending to reduce Cerdian to ashes. Just as with the slicing flame, the Atlantean boy's water shield dissipated the attack.

"A storm of black flame," Cerdian whispered harshly. "I have a better idea. Let's make a storm of blood instead."

The Atlantean mage-prince changed his watery shield into a battering ram of hard water that slammed the Darkheart into the ground. Cerdian wasn't done with him, though; he wrapped the water around himself and charged the shadow entity at superhuman speed. Upon reaching it, he found that it had quickly risen and it retaliated with a telekinetic attack that sliced through his water field. Undeterred, Cerdian re-formed the water field and used it to pierce the shadow entity in the shoulder.

The Darkheart cried out in pain and the air rippled toward Cerdian, battering his water field. Cerdian simply hardened the water field and the air molecules being pushed at him simply caused it to vibrate harmlessly. Cerdian morphed the water field into the shape of a dragon and it wrapped around the Darkheart, squeezing it. Unfortunately, the Darkheart's aura expanded to shatter the water dragon and the Darkheart itself attacked Cerdian, who sheathed himself in a field of water vapor.

Both fighters moved at superhuman speeds, striking each other with blows that could easily turn an ordinary human into paste. The Darkheart proved especially relentless as a fighter, milking every momentary advantage he got over Cerdian for all it was worth. For what it was worth, Cerdian simply used his water to block whenever the Darkheart proved too fast for his hands and feet to block. Additionally, Cerdian used his water to lessen the protection the Darkheart's shadow form afforded it, allowing him to pierce the human body underneath.

The Darkheart chuckled in spite of the pain. "You're aware there's a human being in here somewhere and you're cutting through my power to get to her?"

Cerdian didn't think that was something worth answering, instead delivering a water-enhanced kick to the Darkheart's side. The Darkheart grabbed his ankle, only for Cerdian to lift off with the other foot into a kick to the Darkheart's head, again piercing the shadow entity's defenses. He flipped, tucked in his legs, and pushed them outward in a brutal double-footed kick that sent the Darkheart flying. Cerdian pursued the Darkheart in its uncontrolled flight, battering it with ferocious, unforgiving blows, each one cutting through its shadow defense.

The mage-prince wasn't done yet, not by a long shot. The Darkheart still had a lot of suffering to endure for what it had done to Red Hood. To that end, Cerdian continued his savage pummeling of the Darkheart, even when the human inside began begging him to stop.

"S-stop . . . please . . . stop . . ." a plaintive young female voice pleaded.

"Oh, yes," Cerdian murmured sadistically, morphing the water into a blade. "I'll stop very soon."

Suddenly, a telekinetic blast propelled Cerdian some distance away and into a car. Due to being physically denser than a human, the Atlantean mage-prince was able to shrug it off. He rose from the wreckage of the car, only for the Darkheart to attack him once again. Cerdian formed the water into a barrier that blocked the Darkheart's telekinetic and fiery attacks. He then morphed the water barrier into armor, using it to enhance the power of his blows.

"Crap," Darkstar uttered as he watched. "I've never seen Cerdian like this. Not ever. That look in his eyes . . . that's not Cerdian. It couldn't be him, because he'd never be this vicious."

Cerdian grabbed the Darkheart by the wrist and spun it into a vicious throw that sent it crashing into a nearby building. Cerdian charged through the window and redoubled his assault, only to be thrown out the window by the Darkheart. The mage-prince flipped to his feet, morphing the water armor into a simple field of water that surrounded him. The Darkheart came charging at him, only to be caught in the water field, which enclosed it much like a coffin enclosed a dead body.

"What shall I do with you?" Cerdian wondered with a sadistic gleam in his dead white eyes. "Should I crush you into nothing? Would that be nice?"

"Stop . . ." Red Hood's voice groaned from behind him. Cerdian turned his head to notice Red Hood walking toward him despite having trouble staying on her feet. Her hood was down, revealing her red-orange curly locks. She continued her unsteady but unrelenting approach. "There's a human being in there . . . an innocent person subverted by that monster . . . don't do it. Don't. Please."

Cerdian continued to hold the Darkheart in his watery death grip. He silently commanded the water to harden and constrict. The Darkheart cried out in pain as the water field began to form sharp internal protrusions, not unlike an iron maiden. Suddenly, the water field dissipated into vapor, freeing the Darkheart, who took the opportunity to teleport as far away from Cerdian as possible.

Cerdian simply chuckled cruelly. "That creature won't get far. Not when I can follow teleportation signals." His hand clenched into a fist and mystical lightning – poisoned by the cursed power – crackled around it. To his surprise, Red Hood grabbed his free hand and looked him in the eyes, her sunglasses off so that crystalline green could meet dead white. He blinked once and his eyes were dark violet again. The web-like vein patterns on his face faded away. "Lian."

"She's hurt," Flamebird said.

"We can't take her to a hospital," Darkstar said. "Do you have any idea how many criminals would go after her if they found out she was in the hospital?"

"Where do we go, then?" Flamebird asked.

"There's another place," Red Hood replied. "The Titans Tower here. We can go there. It'll have medical equipment."

Cerdian created a portal and gently assisted Red Hood through it. The other five young heroes followed them through and when they all emerged on the other side, they were in the Titans Tower formerly used by the Titans East. To their surprise, it looked very much updated. The living areas still looked like living areas, but the Tower was pretty much equipped with the latest technology.

* * *

"Somebody's been using this place," Kid Flash commented.

"That would be me," a familiar deep, robust voice answered. The seven teens looked and saw a tall, muscular man with what appeared to be a golden liquid metal body. The liquid metal quickly receded, revealing handsome dark features.

"Hi, Uncle Vic," Red Hood greeted. "Sorry to come here like this."

"It's ok," Vic Stone, a.k.a. Cyborg, answered. "Just tell your boyfriend to use the door like everyone else next time."

Cerdian stared long and hard at Vic. "I'm not her boyfriend," he said.

Vic just smiled in amusement before allowing the nanotechnology within his body to scan Red Hood. "That looks pretty bad. A lot of her ribs are cracked; one of them even looks broken. There's no internal bleeding, though, so the armor in that outfit must have done some good. Follow me."

The seven teens followed Vic to the medical ward of Titans Tower. Once there, Vic looked at Red Hood and then at the medical cot. Red Hood was about to lie down on it, but Vic stopped her. Red Hood looked at him questioningly.

"I hope you have a bra on under there," he said. "If I'm to properly bandage up your ribs, I'll need that vest off."

Red Hood just grinned impishly and answered, "Nope, braless. Looks like you're the lucky man who gets to see me in all my glory."

"Not quite all your glory," Vic amended with some embarrassment in his tone. "You can keep the pants." He looked at the other six. "As for you guys, you don't need to be here."

The six teens departed from the medical ward, hanging out just outside it. Darkstar turned to Cerdian and asked, "What the freaking hell was that back there when we were fighting the Darkheart? You were nothing short of vicious, even though you yourself said there was a human being in there! And what was with that aura?"

Flamebird shivered, remembering how that fight had gone. That aura, that look in his eyes, it had chilled her to the bone. Never before had she seen such viciousness, such ferocity, such unrelenting cruelty. The fact that Cerdian was capable of such monstrous behavior scared her.

"A curse," Cerdian answered. He rubbed the back of his neck, a grim expression on his face. "It's a curse."

"And who are you two?" Kid Flash asked, looking at the corset-clad girl and the costumed male with the atom symbol on his chest.

"Lilim," the corset-clad girl replied. "Lilim Clay."

"Lilim?" Darkstar asked. "Skinny little Lilim?" He looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her chest. "Whoa. You really filled out."

"And you?" Flamebird asked the atom-emblazoned male.

"You can call me Micron," he answered.

"You said the Darkheart murdered your mother," Flamebird said. "How did that happen?"

"That monster torched my house," Micron explained. "I was just taking a nap and the smell of smoke awakened me. I tried to get my mother out, but she was already dead by the time I reached her. The house was in flames and there was nothing I could do about it except get out. When I did, I saw this shadowy creature within the flames, the Darkheart, if that's what unitard kid called him."

"It's Cerdian," the Atlantean boy amended. "And the question is why the Darkheart is targeting us." He looked at Flamebird suspiciously. "Or more to the point, why it is targeting you." He narrowed his eyes. "Since when were you able to manipulate fire?"

"It happened during one of my first patrols," Flamebird admitted. "I underestimated some crooks and I nearly got killed. While I was lying there, passed out from my injuries, I heard a voice speaking to me. It said it would save me, if I accepted it. I said yes and the next thing I knew, I felt . . . warm, like I had some kind of internal heater working overtime. I woke up and my wounds were all healed."

"Did the voice have a name?" Cerdian asked.

"Fireheart," Flamebird replied. "It called itself Fireheart."

"That might explain why it's after you, but it seemed perfectly inclined to attack the rest of us as well," Darkstar said. "Not to mention that it torched Micron's house trying to get at him."

At that moment, Vic exited the medical ward. The six teens halted their discussion to regard him. Darkstar was the first to speak up, asking, "Will she be ok?"

"Yeah, she will be," Vic replied. "I advised her to not try anything too strenuous for the next two weeks, but I doubt she'll listen. Anyway, you can go in and see her now."

The six went inside the medical ward to greet Red Hood, who had put her jacket vest back on. She grinned impishly at Cerdian and Darkstar. "What's the matter, guys? Disappointed that you didn't get to see me topless?"

Darkstar's face turned red with embarrassment, while Cerdian's face took on a faint tinge of red in spite of otherwise expressionless demeanor. Red Hood just laughed in their faces, only to wince in pain shortly afterward. "Stupid ribs," she mumbled.

"I'm . . . glad that you're all right," Cerdian said.

Red Hood grinned before turning to Lilim and Micron. "Who might you two be?"

"Micron," the masked boy with the atom symbol on his chest answered.

"Lilim," the corset-wearing girl replied.

"Lilim?" Red Hood uttered in shock. "Little Lilim? Twiggy Lilim?" She examined the corset-clad girl very closely. "I guess I can't call you either of those names any more."

"Bobby said something like that when I told him," Lilim replied. "He couldn't stop looking at my chest. In fact, he's staring at it right now."

Darkstar groaned as everyone – save Cerdian – had a good laugh at his expense. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he grumbled, glaring particularly at Cerdian and Micron. "As if you weren't looking."

"I wasn't," Cerdian answered simply.

"Me, neither," Micron piped up.

"Liars, the both of you," Darkstar griped.

"Why are we liars?" Cerdian asked irritably.

"Because you are!" Darkstar answered. "Either that, or you're asexual or gay, not that there's anything wrong with either."

Cerdian rolled his eyes, as did Micron under his mask. Lilim just looked at them both and commented, "Never met a guy who could resist the urge to check me out."

"Believe it or not, you're not that impressive," Red Hood derided the platinum blonde.

"Ok, that's enough of that," Vic said. "Now I have to ask, what happened out there?"

"We got our asses kicked," Red Hood replied. "Pure and simple. Some kind of shadow creature attacked us and nothing we did stopped it. Cerdian was the only one who could hurt him at all and that was while under some kind of demonic influence." She shivered slightly. "I don't want to see him turn into that monster again."

"Did you all try to fight him separately or together?" Vic asked.

A chastised Flamebird spoke for all of them. "Separately."

"Well, you can't do that," Vic said. "Not if you expect to live. Operating like seven individuals instead of a team isn't going to cut it against the enemies you'll be facing in the future."

"And what makes you think we're staying together after this?" Darkstar asked with an edge of defiance in his tone.

"Bobby, you're with the Darkstars now, right?" Vic asked. "Do they let you operate by yourself?"

"Not a lot of time," Darkstar admitted. "They usually pair me with a more experienced member or several of us together will go to a trouble spot."

"And why is that?" Vic asked.

"To promote teamwork," Darkstar replied with no trace of his earlier defiance. "We're not just a collection of individuals; we're a single force and we have to act like it."

"Exactly," Vic confirmed with a grin, satisfied that at least one of the seven teens understood what he was trying to teach them.

"We found out something about the Darkheart," Kid Flash offered. "For one thing, it has an enemy, the Fireheart. For another, the Fireheart's inside Flamebird and that's why the Darkheart is after her. What we don't get is why it's after the rest of us, too, if Flamebird is all it wants."

"Does it matter?" Flamebird asked crossly.

"No, it doesn't," Vic answered. "Anyway, the seven of you look like crap, so you might as well get some rest. There're some rooms down the corridor for you to stay in."

"Thanks," Red Hood spoke for them.

* * *

The seven teens departed to find a room, all except Cerdian, who made a beeline to the pool. He dived into it and began swimming, moving swiftly and gracefully underneath its surface. As he swam, he cursed himself for letting the monster inside him loose and cursed the fiend who had put that monster there. He kept swimming, pushing himself to his limits and once those limits had been reached, pushing himself beyond them. If it hadn't been for Lian, he remembered, he would have killed the innocent that the Darkheart currently possessed. He pushed himself for one more lap, and one more lap, and one more lap . . . until he collapsed in the water and faded into a dead sleep.

When Cerdian awakened, he rose to the surface, only to notice a pair of black boots at the edge of the pool. He looked up and saw that it was Lilim, wearing a closed leather jacket with a black-feathered wing-like fringe extending from her right wrist. The leather briefs and thigh-high boots from when he'd first seen her were still present.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Vic wants to see us," Lilim replied. "We still have some time to kill before he comes looking."

"And what does that mean?" Cerdian questioned.

"You seem to be under a lot of stress," Lilim replied. Her voice took on a low, sensuous tone as she began to idly run her finger along the pool's surface. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I helped you _relieve_ it, right?"

Cerdian hated to admit it, but he was a lot more tempted than he appeared. However, he squashed that emotion and answered, "I'm perfectly capable of relieving my own tension."

Lilim leaned closer to Cerdian, as close as she could go without falling into the water. "Do you mean to tell me that you aren't even slightly tempted?" she asked.

Cerdian simply willed the water to lift him out of the pool and onto the floor around it. He began walking out, Lilim following him. "We don't have time for that kind of dalliance," he said. As they walked, Lilim smiled behind his back. He might have won this round, but seduction was often a game of attrition and the young succubus knew how to tear down a man's defenses and inhibitions.

* * *

In the War Room, Vic and the other five young heroes turned to notice that Cerdian and Lilim had finally arrived. Red Hood noticed that Lilim was standing very close to Cerdian and her eyes narrowed underneath her sunglasses. "Glad you could make it," Vic said to the two.

"Hey, what took you so long?" Darkstar asked. "Were you two getting _acquainted?_" He emphasized "acquainted" as though it were a euphemism for something less than completely decent.

"Nothing of the sort," Cerdian answered acidly.

"Not that I would mind getting 'acquainted' with him," Lilim added with a smirk. "He seems like a very interesting nut to crack." She emphasized "nut to crack" as though she wanted to say something less suitable to be heard by children. The deepening smirk on her face only confirmed it, much to Red Hood's disgust.

"Oh, you wouldn't be able to crack that nut," Darkstar remarked. "He's a little on the frigid side."

Lilim suddenly appeared behind Darkstar and placed her hands on his shoulders, rubbing them. "I like a challenge, Bobby," she whispered in his ear, eliciting a shiver and blush from him. Red Hood looked on with a glare beneath her sunglasses.

"Ok, that's enough of that," Vic said. "Lilim, you can save the shoulder rubs for downtime. I've been checking in with Raven, trying to find out everything I can about this Darkheart thing, and the Fireheart along with it. She described them as twins, opposite yet identical. The Fireheart is a celestial force that acts as a 'cleansing flame.' The Darkheart, on the other hand, is a corruptive demonic force. They both act in a symbiotic manner, attaching themselves to hosts, but the Fireheart fuses with its host while the Darkheart simply takes control. Worse, the Darkheart ultimately burns away everything the host ever was."

"Then we have to free whoever it's possessing!" Kid Flash exclaimed. "Before it's too late!"

"There's something else," Cerdian interjected. "When I looked at the Darkheart with Clear Sight, I sensed that it was not the sole possessing force inside its host. There was another presence, but its evil was more human, more personal. That presence momentarily became the dominant one when the Darkheart spotted Lilim."

"Sounds like someone has a grudge against you, Lil," Kid Flash remarked. "But who? A jilted boyfriend?"

"She probably has a lot of those lined up already," Red Hood sneered uncharitably, only to receive a raised middle finger from Lilim in response.

"Hey, we're not going to have any of that in here," Vic said. "As long as the seven of you are working together, you're going to respect each other. By the way, last night's fight ended up on the news. It's circulating throughout the NewsNet feeds." He pressed a button and the screen showed video footage of the fight.

"_As this video shows, several teenage metahumans confronted another metahuman that seemed to be composed of shadow,"_ a reporter narrated. _"The fight led to tremendous property damage, particularly when one of the teens ruptured all the water pipes within the area and used the water as a weapon against the shadow meta through some kind of psychokinetic power. The sudden rush of water led to flood damage and nearly drowned everyone unfortunate enough to be inside those buildings when the pipes ruptured. Fortunately, it was only property that was seriously damaged and not people."_

"_Thank you, Alexa,"_ another reporter spoke. _"Years ago, Steel City was home to the East Coast branch of the young superheroes known as the Teen Titans. During the fight, we saw the offspring of some of the Titans East, such as Red Hood, who has taken up her father Arsenal's bow and arrow. The mysterious water manipulator is certainly the son of Tempest. The question then becomes, 'Will there be a new Titans East?' After all, the West Coast branch of the Titans has been active for almost two years now, so maybe it's time the Titans East had their own resurgence."_

Vic turned off the screen. "Maybe that reporter is right. Maybe the Titans East do need to come back together. First things first, what were you thinking rupturing every single water pipe in the area, Cerdian? Those people could have drowned!"

"I wasn't thinking," Cerdian answered bluntly. "I don't think much of anything when it happens, except for the blood of my enemies coating my skin."

"When what happens?" Vic inquired. "Does it have anything to do with that freaky aura and those markings on your face when you fought the Darkheart?"

Cerdian turned around and pulled at the back of his wetsuit's neck. The seam split apart and he continued pulling until his neck was completely exposed. Vic and the other six teens could see a black marking on the back of his neck. It resembled the internationally recognized biohazard symbol, only more triangular than circular. A diamond shape framed the symbol.

"What the hell is that?" Kid Flash asked.

"The curse I spoke of," Cerdian replied. "My father's uncle branded me with it five years ago. My father managed to restrain its power, but the restraints could only be maintained by my will. Should I give in to anger, fear, hatred, or uncertainty, the restraints will crumble and I will be engulfed by the curse's power."

"The curse doesn't seem entirely detrimental," Darkstar commented. "While it was active, you were way stronger than you normally are, but you were frightening to watch."

"My strength, speed, and mystical ability increase fivefold when the curse is active," Cerdian admitted. "Unfortunately, the curse also perverts my thinking. It fills me with a hunger for the blood of my enemies and makes me liable to lash out at anyone that gets in the way of that."

"Explains why you've spent the past few years being such an ass," Darkstar concluded with a chastised tone in his voice. "Holding back that kind of power couldn't have been easy."

"If the seven of you are gonna be the new Titans East –" Vic started to say, but Lilim cut him off.

"Who said any of us were going to become Titans?" she asked.

"The door's always available if you want out," Red Hood sniped.

It took only one look at Cerdian for Lilim to make her decision. "Heh," she said. "Might as well stick around." She smirked nastily at Red Hood, as if to say that she wasn't going to give the archer the satisfaction of seeing her walk away.

"I've got nowhere to go, anyway," Micron said morosely. "Not with my mother dead and my house burned down."

"Most of you have been at this long enough to have some idea what you're doing, but you could use further training," Vic said. "Plus, you need a way to keep in touch with each other and me." He pressed a button and a drawer opened, revealing seven Titans communicators.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say this played right into your hands," Red Hood said. "You've been looking to restart the Titans East, haven't you?"

"I was going to start recruiting, but you guys just dropped into my lap," Vic remarked with a grin. He blushed when Lilim sent a flirtatious wink his way. "Serendipity, isn't it?"

* * *

End Notes: I'm betting nobody was expecting to see Cyborg. If you're wondering about his golden form, I based it on the time when Cyborg's soul was fused with a morphing bio-mechanism (or something like that) called the Omegadrome. In my version, he was transferred into a cloned body that was fully human, only infused with nanotechnology that could be unleashed from his blood in the form of golden armor coating that granted him superhuman strength and speed as well as technopathy (the ability to manipulate technology, usually through a form of psychic ability or electrokinesis).

Lilim's last name is shared by Lilith Clay, who was a Titan in the comics and is Lilim's mother in this story. In case you're wondering about the exact nature of Lilim's powers, I will explain some time before this arc ends. In the meantime, you're free to tell me what you thought of this story.


	38. East: Confidence

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 5: "East"

Chapter 4: "Confidence"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans doesn't belong to me; it belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. The characters of Red Hood, Cerdian (Tsunami), Darkstar, and Kid Flash – along with Micron and the concept of Flamebird – belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers as well. Succubus is the sole character I own.

Author's note: This will probably be the final chapter in this arc, a follow-up chapter notwithstanding. No one exactly expected Cyborg; I wasn't expecting to use him myself, but it fit perfectly into place. If the new Titans East is to become a cohesive unit, they'll probably need the help of someone who's been there and done that. Who better than the guy who practically held the original Titans East together?

_

* * *

_

Flamebird stood in a circle of flames. The flames licked at her bare skin but she somehow felt no pain. She looked up and saw an orange-red sky with yellow clouds. She heard a voice speak to her within the flames.

"_Elizabeth," the voice spoke. "You are afraid, aren't you?"_

"_Yes," Flamebird admitted._

"_Of the Darkheart or of me?" the voice asked._

"_Both of you," Flamebird answered. "You're inside me, and I don't even know what you are, what I can do with you inside me."_

"_You do not know because you are afraid," the voice stated. "You are afraid that if you accept all I have to give you, you will lose the thing that makes you human. Do you think of your metahuman friends as less than human?"_

"_No," Flamebird replied._

"_Then why think the same of yourself?" the voice asked. The flames began to fade away, and with it Flamebird could feel the presence fading. She reached out to the dying flame, but it snuffed itself out._

* * *

Flamebird awoke with a gasp, her camisole nearly transparent with sweat. After calming her nerves, she got out of her bed and sat on it, beginning to meditate.

Morning came and so did Vic's voice on the intercom. "_Titans East, come down to the dining room. I cooked breakfast!"_

The seven teens – now Titans – marched down one by one to the dining room, all dressed in civilian attire. Lian wore a tight black midriff-baring shirt with a red phoenix emblem on the chest and tight red pants. Cerdian was in all black, a T-shirt, pants, boots, and studded belt. Iris wore her customary leather jacket over a red shirt and blue denim pants. Bobby wore a sleeveless green hoodie and khaki pants. Liz wore a black shirt with flames extending from the cuffs of the sleeves and a khaki skirt. Drew wore a gray T-shirt and black pants, along with a sweatband. Lilim wore a white shirt that was mostly unbuttoned except for the last few buttons and red leather pants with white boots.

"Something smells good," Lian said.

"Glad you noticed," Vic said, turning to Lian and the rest of Titans East. He presented his masterpiece of cooking to them, which was essentially bacon, eggs, and waffles, all set on eight plates for all eight of them. Immediately, Iris began fidgeting rather unusually, her body vibrating at the edges. "Anyone hungry?"

"Me!" Iris exclaimed, dashing into a seat.

"Glad you're so eager, but you might wanna wait for the others to sit down," Vic commented good-naturedly. "C'mon, sit at the table."

The other six Titans found seats, as did Vic. Iris and Bobby were across from each other, while Drew sat on Iris's right and Liz sat next to Drew. Vic sat next to Drew and Cerdian found himself with Lilim and Lian on either side.

"Dig –" Vic started to say, but Iris immediately began eating. "– in."

Everyone else began eating as well. As they ate, Vic turned to Drew and asked, "How have you been doing?"

"It's been a week," Drew answered, "since she died. The thing that killed her is still out there and I don't even know what it wanted with me, or with any of us except Liz."

"We have time to figure it out," Vic said. "Cerdian injured that monster badly enough that it had to take time to recover. In the meantime, we can prepare for another fight with it."

Lilim finished her waffles with gusto, only she'd gotten some maple syrup on her face. Instead of wiping it off with her napkin, she licked it off, making sure that Cerdian was looking in her direction. Slow, sensuous swipes of her tongue cleaned her face of syrup. From next to Cerdian, Lian glared at her.

To his utmost surprise, Cerdian felt something rubbing his thigh, edging closer to . . . a place he really didn't want to think about. He continued eating, trying to put up a façade of normalcy. Still, the mysterious thing – which the Atlantean mage-prince deduced to be a foot – continued rubbing him _there._ He gripped his fork tightly, trying not to lose control.

Having finished cleaning her face with her tongue, Lilim looked at Cerdian, who seemed rather distressed despite a rather impressive effort at hiding it. She looked next to him and saw Lian with a smirk on her face, as though to ask Lilim if she really thought she could outdo her. Lilim glared at Lian, whose smirk of self-satisfaction merely deepened.

The next thing Cerdian knew, the foot that was rubbing him in all the wrong – or right, depending on one's view – ways was joined by another, coming from the opposite side. The two feet competed with each other, trying to see which could rub Cerdian best. The Atlantean boy just continued eating, displaying a rather impressive self-control for one of his age. Then again, that level of discipline was necessary for holding back the dark powers that had been inflicted upon him.

"Something wrong, Cerdian?" Vic asked.

"No, nothing's wrong," he lied, the falsehood rolling smoothly off his tongue.

"Your body temperature's rising," Vic said.

Cerdian didn't answer that, as he was too busy fighting off the all-too-pleasurable sensations of two feet rubbing him in that way. At this point, both feet had seized upon his groin and were rubbing against both each other and it. He gritted his teeth, trying to maintain a measure of control over himself. He concentrated on a focusing technique taught to him by his magic instructors and the all-too-pleasurable feelings began to fade into the background. That wasn't actually what happened, but he was able to assert more control over those feelings.

Suddenly, the sensations halted entirely as he heard Vic say, "Lian, Lilim, quit it. This isn't the place or time for that kind of behavior." Cerdian looked at Lian and Lilim, who looked rather chastised at that point. Lilim looked bitterer at actually being caught, while Lian seemed genuinely shamed.

After everyone had finished breakfast, Vic stood up from the table. "Time for combat practice," he said. "Change into your uniforms and meet me in the combat simulation chamber."

* * *

Approximately ten minutes later, the Titans East was suited up and in the combat simulation chamber. Vic was there as well, but in his golden metal form. The chamber had taken on the holographic appearance of a cityscape.

"All right, just like before, we're going to practice fighting a common enemy," Cyborg said. "I'll be that enemy. The seven of you will have to practice fighting me together, emphasis on together. None of that one at a time nonsense." He looked at Red Hood. "Take it easy, Hood. Your ribs haven't finished healing yet."

Red Hood simply attached a crossbow-style weapon to her wrist. "They're almost healed. And you might not be saying that once you see what I can do."

"Come on, then," Cyborg challenged. "Show me what you got."

"You heard him," Red Hood said to the other Titans.

"Titans Together!" Flamebird shouted, using her celestial flame to launch herself into a flying kick. The kick missed, but the next thing Cyborg knew, he was being assaulted on all sides by a Kid Flash that was earning her name. Red Hood waited until Kid Flash had left Cyborg open and tensed her wrist, sending a neuromuscular signal to her wrist-bow to open itself and fire at Cyborg. The bolt by itself wouldn't pierce Cyborg's nanotech shell, but it was explosive and that knocked the metal-sheathed man for a loop.

Cyborg quickly recovered, only to be struck by an optic force beam from Cerdian. The blast didn't pierce his nanotech sheath, but it was enough to knock him back a few paces. Darkstar pursued him with maser blasts, but Cyborg was dodging them all with impressive speed. A blur of black suddenly assaulted him, striking him from all sides much like Kid Flash had just returned to doing.

Cyborg decided to turn the tables, letting the nanotech in his body analyze the situation. It identified the black blur attacking him along with the red blur that was Kid Flash as Lilim. Since the tech could react faster than he could, he decided to let it help him out. He extended the nanotech sheath from his arms and used it to catch Kid Flash and Lilim. It proved useless, since Kid Flash simply vibrated out of Cyborg's grip and Lilim . . . Lilim suddenly put on a burst of superhuman strength that allowed her to bust loose with brute force. She landed on the ground and spun into a fast kick that Cyborg caught due to his own fast reflexes. Lilim didn't give up, her nails extending into long and sharp metal claws that she thrust at him as she swung her other leg into a kick.

Cyborg took the kick as a price for avoiding her claws. He smiled. "That's pretty clever, Lil, making me choose my injury," he commented. "Nice tactic." To his surprise, Micron leaped out of the ground with an uppercut to Cyborg's chin, the punch just barely being caught by Cyborg. "Nice move, Micron. Your atomic manipulation skills are improving."

Micron dived into the holographic street. "I hope you're not going to try the same tactic twice," Cyborg commented. He looked up and saw Micron coming down at him from the holographic night sky. He caught Micron and tossed him into a nearby holographic building. Micron simply moved through it and came back from another building for another attack. "You can't keep doing this forever, Micron. Eventually, I'll nail you."

Lilim smirked. "Why, Vic, I didn't know you swung that way," she remarked before "telekinetically" throwing him into Micron's attack. Micron struck with a hard punch, not hard enough to actually put a dent in Cyborg, but the nanotech-sheathed man could feel it. Cerdian and Darkstar tag-teamed the golden man, assaulting him with powerful and swift blows. Cyborg managed to evade many of their hits, but the ones that connected were pretty strong.

The two young men broke off from their attack on Cyborg, allowing Red Hood and Flamebird to get their licks in. Explosive arrows and fire-wreathed birdlike shuriken flew at Cyborg, who dodged them, only to fall prey to a maser blast from Darkstar. Lilim jumped into the air and flipped as she descended, landing with a hard kick to Cyborg's temple. A microscopic Micron descended upon Cyborg, resizing just before the impact, which surprisingly floored the golden man.

Cyborg chuckled. "You've improved even more than I thought, Micron." With another chuckle, he added, "End simulation." The holographic cityscape faded into blank walls, floor, and ceiling. "You mind getting off me? You're kind of heavy like that."

Micron removed himself from Cyborg and helped him to his feet. Cyborg willed the nanotechnology back into his bloodstream, reverting to Victor Stone.

"Good job, all of you," he said. "Certainly an improvement over your performance against the Darkheart."

"Did you have to remind us of that?" Kid Flash asked. "I could live the rest of my life without hearing that creep's name."

"I know it's after me because I have the Fireheart inside me," Flamebird said. "What I don't know is why it's after you as well."

"There is a very simple answer for that, Elizabeth Kane," a voice, otherworldly and powerful, answered. The voice was soon joined by a body, seemingly made from golden-and-black metal. The head of that body had glowing white eyes and a trail of reddish flame for hair. "The strings of fate and destiny connect you to these six."

"And who the hell are you?" Flamebird asked.

"Waverider," the golden being replied. "Watcher and guardian of Hypertime."

"Strings of fate and destiny," Darkstar repeated. "Are you saying that the seven of us were destined to come together?"

"Exactly, Robert Troy Long," Waverider confirmed. "Everyone is connected to one another by these strings, but the connections are stronger in those that are destined to actually meet and unite. The strings that bind the seven of you are stronger than the strings that have connected many others like you. That is why the Darkheart is after all of you. It is not just targeting the keeper of the Fireheart; it is targeting her guardians and allies as well."

"How do we stop it?" Micron asked.

"It is not the seven of you who will stop it," Waverider answered. "It is the keeper of the Fireheart. The six of you will be there to help her, but the ultimate defeat of the Darkheart will be up to Flamebird. Beyond that, the future is uncertain."

"If you're the Watcher of Hypertime, aren't you supposed to be, I dunno, omniscient?" Kid Flash asked dryly.

"An easy assumption to make," Waverider replied. "It's mostly true, but the future can be clouded by certain circumstances or entities. The Darkheart is one of those entities." He sighed. "What makes it worse is that it is powered by an all-too-human wrath."

"That's what I sensed," Cerdian mentioned. "Another possessing force besides the Darkheart, one that was more human in the nature of its evil. That force came to the forefront when the Darkheart took notice of Lilim."

"That is because the third component of this twisted merger is Jarrod Jupiter," Waverider explained, turning to Lilim. "Sibling to your mother, Lilith Clay. He was killed in a battle with a previous incarnation of the Titans, but his wrathful spirit persisted and the Darkheart must have been attracted to it. However, without a corporeal body, both would be helpless to act on their desires, so they took an innocent with just enough of a spiritual taint to sustain their presence in her body. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you already know, the Darkheart will ultimately consume them both, as its evil is too much for anything human – corporeal or otherwise – to survive."

"How do we get the Darkheart out of her body?" Darkstar asked.

"The key to that lies in the Fireheart's power, if you are not afraid to tap into it," Waverider answered, addressing Flamebird. He faded away in a fiery shimmer.

"At least we know who our enemy is and why it wants us dead," Kid Flash commented. "So why am I not feeling any better?"

"Because it kicked our asses last time and the only time it got hurt was when Cerdian went psycho on it," Darkstar added snidely.

"A psychotic uncle whose existence I was never made aware of," Lilim grumbled. "And now he's merged with a cosmic evil force that wants us all dead. Bet he's gonna take his sweet time on me."

"It's not just you," Red Hood sniped. "Jupiter may have it in for you personally, but the Darkheart wants us all dead and it's consuming an innocent person. Hell, as we speak, it might be too late to save her, and you're concerned about yourself!"

Lilim laughed in Red Hood's face, prompting the archer to ask, "What the hell is so funny?"

"You," Lilim replied. "You're so transparent, Lian." Her smile was almost demonic as she reached out to stroke Red Hood's jaw with her finger. "So transparent. You're scared I'll steal Cerdian away from you."

"Why should I be afraid of that?" Red Hood asked. "He'd never go for someone like you."

"What do you mean, someone like me?" Lilim asked coyly.

"Did you really think all I did over the past week was sleep and train?" Red Hood inquired with a sneer. "Your M.O. is to seduce metahumans and drain their life energy, like some kind of sexual vampire. You don't kill them, but their powers are copied into your DNA, allowing you to use them about as well as they could. That's where all those powers you have came from, right? Of course, you can't use them together; your body would implode, wouldn't it?"

A telekinetic blast from Lilim threw Red Hood across the combat simulation room. The nanotech in Vic's body analyzed the psionic attack and his eyes widened as it saw something distort when Lilim attacked. As for Red Hood, she willed herself onto her feet and the crossbow-style weapon on her wrist opened, firing an explosive bolt at Lilim, who caught it with inhuman reflexes. The bolt disintegrated just before it could explode and mere moments after that, she was directly in front of Red Hood, a hand at the archer's throat. The archer had the presence of mind to squeeze a nerve cluster in the power mimicker's forearm, numbing it and forcing said power mimicker to release her.

The other Titans, Vic included, ran to the warring girls, Kid Flash and Cerdian making it first. The six restrained both girls, preventing them from continuing their fight.

"Was what Lian said true, Lilim?" Cerdian asked, his distrust evident in his voice.

"Your point?" Lilim asked in a falsely nonchalant tone, her anger evident in her eyes. "I only duplicated their powers. They still have them and they're still very much alive."

"Not the point," Vic answered. "If you're going to be a Titan, you can't go around stealing other metas' powers, particularly not like that. As Titans, we're expected to set an example and that is not the example we're supposed to be setting."

"Don't patronize me," Lilim hissed.

"And you're not blameless either, Lian," Vic continued. "You didn't reveal the nature of Lilim's powers for the good of the team. You did it because you were hoping I'd kick her out and then Cerdian would be fair game for you, didn't you?" He paused at the grim set of her jaw, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. "No such luck. You're all Titans and you're all going to act like it, understand?"

He and the other Titans released Red Hood and Lilim. "Training's over. All of you hit the showers."

* * *

Later that day, Lilim watched the sun from the rooftop of Titans Tower, her arm still slightly numb from what Red Hood had done to it. She heard footsteps approaching but didn't turn around to see their source. She didn't even turn around to see who was sitting next to her, although she did see a pair of scarlet-clad legs beside hers. They didn't belong to Kid Flash, though; these legs were too masculine to belong to the redheaded speedster.

"Hey," the voice of Darkstar spoke.

"Hey," Lilim greeted unenthusiastically.

"When did you find out you could copy the powers of people you drained?" Darkstar asked.

"It all started on my sixteenth birthday," Lilim explained. "I had a boyfriend at the time, a senior named Ryan. I gave him my virginity, but I got back his life force. I didn't even know what was happening, but I pulled away from him before it could kill him. So much good that did, he ended up in a coma and I ended up a pariah at the school. The odd thing was that I became some kind of boy magnet, only it felt wrong, like there was something else going on besides the obvious.

"Finally, a few months later, I agreed to one date with a guy. This was after Ryan woke up and broke up with me. I was feeling down, so I figured a date might be what I needed to perk myself up. The same thing happened that happened to Ryan happened to him, too, but he recovered quicker.

"The word went around pretty quickly that I was poison, that any contact with me would get somebody killed. My mother tried to help, but I felt like I was the monster everyone at school assumed I was. She took me to S.T.A.R. Labs to get my powers analyzed, and they found out that I was a psychic vampire. I could lure men to me by way of empathic attraction and then drain their life energy via sexual contact.

"I wanted to get control of my power and I figured that I could do that by using it as often as possible. Hey, practice makes perfect, right? After one of my so-called conquests, I discovered I had telekinetic powers. I went to S.T.A.R. Labs again, and they told me I'd actually gained the power to warp physical reality, or in simpler terms, make the physical world do what I wanted it to do."

"So you might not have needed those other powers," Darkstar suggested. "If you hit an object and wanted it to break, it would break, right?"

"Probably, but once I started, it was almost like I couldn't stop," Lilim continued. "I ended up hitting metahuman clubs and finding metas to seduce so I could copy their powers. My mother was scared for me, but I told her I could defend myself. Still, just to appease her, I took some self-defense classes so I could kick ass if I had to."

Darkstar reached out and gently took her hand in his. "Hey. I'm not gonna think any less of you. If anyone else does, that's just them being judgmental assholes."

"Thanks," Lilim whispered. "How's your mother doing?"

"She's fine," Darkstar answered. "Roy's actually pretty good for her." He sighed softly, as though there was something he was thinking that he didn't quite want to speak aloud.

"What's wrong?" Lilim asked.

"You ever wonder why I don't have powers, even though my mother did?" Darkstar asked.

"I just figured Amazonian magic couldn't be transferred genetically to males," Lilim replied.

"That's what my mother told everyone," Darkstar muttered. "She actually had the gods that empowered her and Aunt Diana strip my powers from me, all because someone showed her a future where my powers supposedly drove me mad and I became some kind of super-dictator. I only found out when my powers started coming back and that was when I tried to run away from home. Roy talked me out of it, had me come back and patch things up with my mom.

"After that, I found a dying Darkstar while I was out. He told me that he'd been pursuing an intergalactic criminal, but he wasn't prepared for his friends and . . ." He sighed before going on. "He was dying of his wounds when I found him. He asked me to complete his mission for him, so I took his suit and put it on. Then I completed his mission. It wasn't pretty. The other Darkstars were kind of wary about letting a 'kid' join them, but I kicked enough ass to convince them. Still a little miffed about my mother stripping me of my powers."

Darkstar looked at Lilim and changed the subject. "What is it about Cerdian that makes you like him so much?" he wondered.

"He's a challenge," Lilim replied. "Most guys practically bend over backwards for me. He doesn't, acts like he couldn't care less, all closed off and stuff. Just makes me want to break down his walls and literally screw the resistance out of him."

Darkstar didn't know exactly how to answer that. He held back a sigh, although he silently observed that Lilim was apparently a classic case of "women wanting what they couldn't have." Fortunately, he was saved from answering Lilim's statement by an alert on his Titans communicator.

"Lilim, Darkstar, we need your help!" Vic, in golden mode, shouted. "It's the Darkheart again!"

* * *

"We'll be right there," Darkstar answered for them both and closed the communicator. He and Lilim ran into the Tower and ricocheted down the stairway with superhuman agility, finding their way to the scene of the fight. They got there just in time to see Cerdian and the Darkheart charging each other, ricocheting off the walls, ceiling, and floor of the corridor to strike each other in midair with swords created from their respective energies. Cerdian and the Darkheart passed each other as they struck, landing opposite each other. Just as the first time, the fabric of Cerdian's wetsuit darkened with blood.

Red Hood fired her explosive arrows at the Darkheart, enhanced by Flamebird's celestial fire. The arrows exploded with double the force upon impact with the Darkheart, knocking the shadow creature for a loop. Before it could recover its balance, Micron emerged from the ceiling and struck it hard, enhancing the blow by increasing the atomic density of his fist. Kid Flash made her contribution to the Darkheart's distress by attacking it at super-speed. Lilim stirred up a fierce gust to throw the Darkheart around without even touching it and Darkstar shot it with a volley of maser blasts.

The Darkheart roared in anger and pain, generating a wave of force that knocked all the Titans East off their feet and into the walls or onto the ground. It charged at Cerdian at tremendous speed and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him into a wall. Red Hood fired an explosive arrow at its back, but the Darkheart whirled and made Cerdian take the hit for it.

"Cerdian!" Red Hood cried out, anguish evident in her voice. She stared down the Darkheart, shaded eyes meeting burning orbs. The crossbow attachment on her wrist flipped open and she fired bolt after bolt at the Darkheart. Unfortunately, the bolts were deflected by an invisible force field.

"Nice try, archer," the Darkheart spoke harshly. He blasted her with a wave of black flame, only for that flame to be deflected by a shield of celestial flame. "Fireheart!"

"That's right," Flamebird answered, a cutting wave of celestial flame making its way toward the Darkheart, who dodged the cutting flame and retaliated with a cutting fire wave of his own. Flamebird dodged the wave with great alacrity and sent knife-like lines of celestial flame at the Darkheart from each finger. This time, the Darkheart couldn't dodge and the lines impaled it through the shoulder, causing it to howl in pain. Despite the pain, that howl became laughter. "What's so funny?"

"You're hurting the girl whose body I own," the Darkheart answered. "You might want to be more careful about that."

"It's time to get out of that body," Flamebird said.

"And how are you going to make me do that?" the Darkheart taunted. "You're not even aware of the full extent of your power!"

"No, not really," Flamebird admitted heavily. She drew in a sigh and continued, her voice firm. "But I'm not going to be afraid of it." She wove the celestial flame into the body the Darkheart was possessing, causing it to scream. The celestial flame infiltrated every cell of the Darkheart's host body, filling it with a power that the shadow entity could not withstand. With an excruciating yell, the Darkheart expelled itself from its host, becoming an amorphous darkness that threatened to cover the entirety of the Tower.

"What's going on?" Micron asked. "I can barely see anything!"

"The Darkheart," Cerdian spoke in quiet horror. "Its darkness is so great that no light is being let in. Even I can't see in here."

"No light, huh?" Flamebird echoed. "We'll see about that." She generated a blowtorch of celestial fire and extended into a saber that cleaved the omnipresent darkness. "Time to go . . . both of you. Cerdian, banishment spell."

"On it," Cerdian replied, chanting something in the ancient Atlantean tongue. As he chanted, a point of light formed within the darkness, a point of light that grew into a giant whirlpool of radiance. This time there were two cries, one an inhuman roar and the other an all-too-human wail. With a yell, he and Flamebird plunged the errant spirit and the dark force into the portal, banishing them forever. The portal closed behind them, leaving behind Titans Tower in almost perfect condition.

"Are you . . . ok?" Red Hood asked Cerdian.

"It hurt, but I don't die that easily," Cerdian answered. His demeanor lightened somewhat with the next thing he spoke to her. "Thanks for the concern."

"Who else never wants to do that again?" Kid Flash asked.

"Me," Lilim agreed.

"I think none of us quite wants to do that again," Cyborg said, "but look on the positive side. Your first big battle as a team and you won. That's cause to celebrate, but first we gotta see to that girl." He turned to the former host of the Darkheart, a disheveled dark-haired girl with bags under her seemingly vacant brown eyes. "Are you all right? Do you remember anything?"

"I remember . . . darkness," the girl replied.

"How about anything else," Cyborg prompted. "Your name, where you live, anything like that?"

"I see a mailbox," the girl murmured uncertainly. "There's a name on it . . . Maddox."

Cyborg picked up the girl and carried her to the computer ops room of the Tower. He used the nanotechnology in his body to create a neural interface with the supercomputer and search the Steel City residence database for the name Maddox. He soon found an address: 1939 Finger Avenue. "Is this it?" he asked her.

"Yes," the girl replied. "I, I think so."

"Then we'll take you there," Cyborg said.

* * *

As it turned out, the girl was amnesiac. The Darkheart hadn't finished consuming her, but it had eroded enough of who she was that much of her past was lost to her. Her parents didn't care about that; they were just happy to have their daughter back. Fortunately, her mind would eventually restore itself, like a computer after being purged of a virus.

When the Titans East returned to their Tower, Cyborg linked the nanotechnology in his brain to the Tower's supercomputer, using it to turn on electronic dance music. As the music came on, the usual illumination was shut off, replaced by multicolored strobe lights. He turned to the seven teens and grinned at them. "We won, you guys," he said. "Time to celebrate!"

"Sounds good to me," Red Hood answered.

* * *

End Notes: Not for the first time, I end an arc on a "feel good" note. The Titans East of 2031 have gone through their trial by fire and come out of it victorious. Like Cyborg said, it's time to celebrate. There will be a follow-up to this, though, which will have the future Titans you've come to know and love meeting the new Titans East.

Waverider, for those of you who are not avid followers of DC Comics, is a Linear Man, one of a group of beings existing outside of and acting as guardians over the timestream. His first appearance was in the Armageddon 2001 storyline, published in 1991, in which he came back in time to warn the heroes that one of their own would become the tyrannical villain aptly named Monarch. Any further explanation gets too complicated, so I'll skip that.

Jarrod Jupiter and Lilith Clay are part of Titans comic canon. Lilith joined the Titans when the team consisting of Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), and Aqualad (Garth) was active. Jarrod Jupiter was a character that debuted in Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans series – which had a team made up of a teenage Atom, Argent, Hotspot (known there as Joto), Prysm, and Risk – but was placed in the history of the original Titans team through retroactive continuity, more commonly known as "retcon." Both Jarrod and Lilith were psychics, but Jarrod was primarily an illusionist while Lilith was primarily a telepath, and Jarrod was driven by a pathological jealousy of his sister and the Titans, feeling that they'd stolen his father's love from him.

I figured Micron would be more or less useless in a fight unless I upgraded his powers, so I did. It's now atomic manipulation, which has a variety of uses besides shrinking and growing. He can push foreign atoms out of his way, allowing himself effective intangibility, and he can increase his atomic mass, which increases his density, giving more weight to his blows. The reverse is true as well; by reducing his atomic mass, he can reduce his density, which makes him lighter and thus more agile.

That's enough explanation for the day. In the meantime, feel free to review.


	39. Side Story 14: World Trip

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 14: "World Trip"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. A considerable number of the principal characters that will appear in this chapter do not belong to me; they belong to DC Comics mostly. The rest are mine.

Author's note: Hopefully, you enjoyed my future take on Titans East. Now you'll see them meet the Titans you've come to know and enjoy. Plus, you'll be seeing another dimension's Titans team, which will be at least somewhat integral to the plot. The characters you'll see in that team were not made up by me; they're all from comic canon, both older and more recent. Enjoy.

* * *

High in a blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, a jet soared at supersonic speeds. The jet was colored a silvery white with blue circuit panels. In terms of design, it was long and sleek, tapering to a sharp point at the front, with a pair of forward-swept wings protruding from the back and a pair of sharp triangular fins at the top. Inside the jet was state-of-the-art piloting and navigation equipment, which was being manned by Nightstar and Bladefire while Beast Girl, Mercury, Inferno, and Samara sat behind them.

"Are we there yet?" Beast Girl asked.

"We will be," Nightstar replied. "I wonder how Lian's doing. I haven't seen her since her high school graduation."

"Don't you two IM each other constantly?" Bladefire asked.

"Not the same as seeing her face," Nightstar answered. "Not the same as hearing her voice."

"And you wonder why people think you have lesbian tendencies," Mercury remarked, earning him a slap upside the head from Beast Girl and another from Samara, the latter harder. "Ow! I never said that was a _bad_ thing!"

"You're an ass sometimes, you know that?" Inferno observed dryly. "Of course, that could be remedied if your mouth didn't operate faster than your brain."

"I get it, I get it," Mercury whined. "I was being a jackass. Sorry, Mar'i."

"No harm done," Nightstar answered, spotting Steel City's Titans Tower in the distance. She immediately flew closer, aiming for the landing strip on top of the Tower. As she descended, she saw Lian, dressed in her Red Hood garb, waving at her with glowing signal sabers. She landed on the strip and then opened the stepping hatch, letting the hydraulics push it into a slanting position against the ground so that she and the other Titans could exit the jet.

"Hey," Red Hood greeted. "I see you're one short. Where's Raziel?"

"He left," Nightstar answered.

"You mean he broke up with you?" Red Hood asked.

"No, nothing like that," Nightstar contradicted. "He just . . . had to get his head back on straight. We're not broken up. I don't know what we are exactly."

"Anyway, why don't you come inside?" Red Hood asked. "The rest of the Titans East is dying to see you guys and that includes Uncle Vic."

The seven teens walked into the Tower via the roof access and descended the stairway. As they walked, Mercury tried to make conversation. "How's Iris doing?" he asked.

"I'll let her tell you that herself," Red Hood replied. She opened the door at the end of the stairway and stepped through, the others following. She walked into the main room of the Tower, where Darkstar was playing chess with Lilim, Kid Flash was playing Mystics & Dragons with Cerdian, and Micron was reading a scientific journal while Cyborg read it over his shoulder.

Cyborg took notice of Red Hood and the Titans West and waved. "Long time no see."

"It's definitely been a while, Uncle Vic," Nightstar answered. "It's good to see you."

Mercury sped by Kid Flash and looked over her shoulder. "Good cards," he whispered.

"Thanks," she whispered back.

Inferno wandered by Micron and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "I heard about what happened to your mom," the pyromancer spoke, his tone apologetic and cheerless. "I know this is a pointless question to ask, but how are you holding up?"

"Pretty good," Micron replied. "I'm still sane, the thing that murdered my mom is no longer in this dimension, so everything's good. Plus, I'm living with the Titans. They're pretty good company."

Samara observed Darkstar and Lilim's chess game. From her vantage point, Darkstar seemed to have all the advantages except for one small gap in his defenses. If Lilim saw that gap, he was finished, very, very finished. She continued to watch their game, which ironically seemed more like a flirtation than a contest of wills, or perhaps it was both.

"Where's Flamebird?" Bladefire asked.

"In the combat simulation room," Cyborg replied.

"Thanks," Bladefire said, disappearing to find her.

"Do you even know where the combat simulation room is?" Cyborg shouted after him.

Bladefire pulled out his Titans communicator and flipped it open. After pressing some buttons, the communicator locked onto the signal emitted by Flamebird's communicator. He followed that signal all the way to the combat simulation room, where he found himself on its observation deck. He watched her, dressed in skintight red with a flaming birdlike V design on her chest and a birdlike mask with goggle-style lenses, as she battled hard-light holograms of gangs. He had to admit, she was good, a lot better than the reputation inherited from her mother would suggest.

He waited until she was finished and then contacted her by communicator. "If you're not too tired, would you like to try me?" he asked.

"Bladefire," she answered. "You never call. You never write. What's the occasion?"

"We wanted to see the new Titans for ourselves," Bladefire answered simply, exiting the observation deck and coming down to the combat simulation room. His indigo eyes narrowed as he shifted into a combat stance, Flamebird assuming a stance of her own. He invited her to make the first move, an invitation she took up by aiming a high kick for his head that he batted aside. Unfazed by this, she pirouetted into a kick to his side, which he dodged by simply shooting straight into the air, throwing her off.

He came back down with a powerful kick that Flamebird blocked with her forearm, relying on the armor-like weave of her suit to absorb most of the impact. Undeterred, he jumped off her forearm and spun into a kick that was also blocked by her. He flipped backward and flew right into Flamebird, who gripped him as his momentum propelled her toward the far wall. She turned said momentum on him, using it to spin into a throw that sent him soaring.

Bladefire righted himself in midair and came back at Flamebird with swift and strong kicks while staying in the air. She blocked as many as she could, but the Fireheart did not do much to augment her physical abilities. She could take a hit better than she used to and she could heal faster than a normal person, but she wasn't super-strong or super-fast or super-agile. Unfortunately for her, she was fighting someone who did possess super-strength and whose physiology granted him a degree of enhanced speed and agility. Plus, he could fly and incorporating flight made him even faster and more agile than he was to begin with.

Finally, he landed a kick and sent her crashing to the ground. She turned her fall into a roll and was immediately back on her feet. She reached into her utility belt and pulled out three bird-styled shuriken, throwing them all at Bladefire. With insane reflexes, he caught all of them.

"Nice try," he commented, "but you still have to work on your aim."

Flamebird pulled out two shuriken and threw both at Bladefire, who half-flew, half-dived out of the way. He landed in a crouch, skidding to a stop and summoning three energy knives between his fingers. He fired them all at Flamebird, who managed to dodge two of them and the third was deflected by a projection of flame.

"Since when did you have pyrokinesis?" he asked.

"It's a long story," Flamebird replied.

Before she could elaborate (assuming she wanted to elaborate), she and Bladefire felt Titans Tower shake. "What's going on?" she asked.

Bladefire's answer was to immediately grab her hand and fly her up to the main room of the Tower. Once there, he found the other Titans already assembled. Cyborg was mentally interfacing with the Tower's computer systems, scanning for whatever could have caused the disturbance. He "unplugged" himself and looked at the assembled teens.

"Someone or something just plugged itself into Earth's core," he said.

"From where?" Flamebird asked, having let go of Bladefire's hand.

"Smallville, Kansas," Cyborg replied.

Nobody had to be asked what the significance of Smallville was. Everyone present knew it was where the craft that had carried an infant Kal-El away from the destruction of his homeworld Krypton had landed. Everyone present who was privy to the Earth identity of Kal-El knew that was where a young Kal-El had been inculcated with the morality that had given an alien with the powers of a virtual god the wisdom to use them to help humanity rather than to conquer it. If someone wanted to cause trouble there, it was by all means bad.

Cerdian created a spell-portal. "It'll save us time," he stated.

"Then you know what to do," Cyborg said. "I'll stay here and coordinate you through your communicator network."

* * *

Smallville, Kansas was a simple rural town, a simple rural town with simple ideals and values. Ironically, that was the very reason why Kal-El, the first Superman, wasn't some kind of tyrant. The very people who had raised him were pinnacles of those simple rural ideals and values, chief among them compassion for those that were not as blessed as he. This was the place that had served, in many ways, as the birthplace of Earth's greatest hero . . . and now a giant slate-colored tubular apparatus was embedded deep within the farmland that was Kal-El's spiritual home, doing only a higher power knew what.

The Titans, West and East, arrived just in time to see the apparatus, which appeared to have purple circuit panels ringing it. The panels seemed to be glowing, dully at first but soon becoming brighter.

"What is that thing?" Lilim asked.

Micron and Inferno both went to examine it, only to be shocked away by a force field. "Whatever it is," Inferno answered, "they don't want us touching it."

"What do you think it is?" Red Hood asked.

"Some kind of siphoning device, most likely," Micron replied. "By the way, you might want to look up."

The Titans did exactly that and spotted something hovering above their heads. That something was a giant dome-like construct with a long "tail" that extended from its back. The "tail" sprouted wing-like protrusions at the end, protrusions that appeared to be engines of some sort.

"That thing looks kind of like a Coalition starship from _Warp Trek,_" Mercury commented idly.

"Unfortunately, it probably isn't as friendly as a Coalition starship," Micron added.

Suddenly, crystalline energy swirled around the Titans. The energy resembled snowflakes and its motion resembled a blizzard, obscuring the Titans' ability to see outside their immediate area. After thirty seconds, the energy began to dissipate, revealing humanoid figures in the glow of the crystalline energy. As the energy continued to dissipate, the figures became more visible, revealed as beings clad in black armor. The armor covered the shoulders, torso, and legs, with matching chain mail making up the rest of their suits. Their faces were concealed by black helmets with opaque visors. They all exuded a threatening aura, made more threatening by the fact that there were five of them for each one of the Titans.

One figure stepped forward and the Titans could see that he was armored differently from the others. His torso armor was ridged in the upper chest area and the rest of his armor was somewhat more ornate than that of his companions. His helmet was marked by a symbol above the visor, a symbol that resembled a double helix that was partially scratched out.

"Who the hell are you?" Nightstar asked.

"The Scryed," the armored being replied. "You may personally address me as Vypr."

"What do you want?" Flamebird questioned. "What is that thing you've put in the ground? What is it doing?"

"We, the Scryed, intend to harness the energy of multiple realities," Vypr explained. "The energy of those worlds will be redistributed across the remaining realities, strengthening them. Eventually, there will be only one universe, only one reality . . . and in that reality, the Scryed will be supreme, for we will have the energy of all realities within us."

"And to do that, you're willing to commit multidimensional genocide?" Samara asked. "Obliterate countless billions of lives, stamp out entire worlds?"

Vypr chuckled. "Thank the white-haired one. Without him, we would not have become aware of this universe for quite some time."

Mercury gaped at him in open horror. "What the hell do you mean, you bastard?"

"You don't always vibrate on the same wavelength of your dimension," Vypr explained. "Sometimes, your vibration matches the wavelength of another universe and you are momentarily dragged into it. It is always random and you never stay for an extended period of time. We spotted you while you were in one of the universes which energy we were going to harness. When you vibrated back into your reality, we followed your wavelength . . . and that was how we found your world."

An aura of speed lightning formed around Mercury, pooling at his feet and gathering into his outstretched hand. The lightning concentrated itself as a vaguely spherical shape, although trails of electricity continued to emanate from the sphere. Mercury pulled the lightning-holding hand back and charged Vypr, only for his wrist to be grabbed by Vypr in a supremely swift motion and twisted. The white-haired speedster swung himself upward to kick Vypr in the head in a super-fast motion which energy he channeled into a super-strong kick. Vypr was forced to let go of Mercury's wrist by the kick and Mercury twisted again to elbow him in the spine before flipping off him.

Vypr rose to his feet and even through the helmet concealing his face, his rage was evident. "You're going to pay for that," he snarled, drawing a large black sword decorated with a skull between the hilt and the blade.

"Who wants to say it?" Nightstar asked.

"How about we say it together?" Red Hood suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Nightstar answered.

"Titans Together!" Nightstar and Red Hood shouted, launching their respective Titans teams into combat. Strands of purple light extended from Nightstar's fingers and she extended them into energy wire that cut through the armored beings. Red Hood somersaulted into the air and drew her bow, extending it to its full size and firing explosive arrows at the armored beings.

All around the two girls, the other Titans began to fight. Samara transformed into an astral form of herself and jumped inside Inferno, combining their powers as orange-red fire edged with black struck down several armored beings. Beast Girl shifted into her preferred combat form, a feline hybrid, and battled the armored beings with the strength and agility of the feline whose features she had melded with her human body. Mercury battled the armored beings at speeds swifter than anyone normal could follow. Bladefire materialized twin energy swords to fight the armored beings.

Cerdian shot optic force beams at the armored beings and cut through them with his lightning blade. Kid Flash fought the armored beings with super-speed, similar to her cousin Mercury. Darkstar alternated between maser blasts and hand-to-hand combat in dealing with the armored beings. Flamebird flung shuriken enhanced by celestial fire at the armored beings, piercing their armor. Micron shifted his atoms around the armored beings' attacks to avoid being struck by them. Lilim began fighting the armored beings with superhuman strength.

As the Titans battled Vypr and his warriors, Red Hood moved over to Cerdian, covering his back as she took down some armored beings. "You think you can transport Nightstar and me into that ship?" she asked him.

"Probably," Cerdian replied, opening a portal above their heads.

"How do you expect me to jump that high?" Red Hood questioned.

"Me," Nightstar replied, grabbing Red Hood from behind and flying up into the portal with her. The two girls emerged into the bridge of the ship, where they encountered even more armored beings. Red Hood fired more arrows – these being the armor-piercing variety – to disable them. Once the arrows pierced the armor, they sent a two-hundred-thousand-volt shock through them, knocking them down. The ones that didn't go down after those arrows were brought down by Nightstar's optic blasts and energy whip.

The two girls looked around, seeing the sort of technology that would be more fitting in a _Warp Trek_ series. Flat-panel consoles were everywhere on the ship, most likely being scanning equipment. The floors and walls and ceiling were very polished, reflecting the light inside in such a way that it hurt Nightstar's sensitive eyes. Despite that, she looked around with Red Hood, trying to find anything that might resemble a dimensional portal to send Vypr and his troops back to whence they came.

Nightstar sat in front of a console and busily pressed the "buttons" that were actually smaller panels activated by simple touch. Information began to appear on the screen, but it was all in a code she could not begin to decipher. Still, she pressed on; Tamaraneans were a highly advanced people technologically, so there wouldn't be too much strain in figuring out how this technology worked.

Meanwhile, Red Hood looked over Nightstar's shoulder, not understanding a thing about what the half-alien girl was doing. Nevertheless, she kept up a guard for any other troops that might show up. As she looked around, she saw an almost egg-shaped silvery object. Curiously, she picked it up.

"Hey, you think this might help?" she asked.

"Don't play with it, Hood," Nightstar advised.

"Please," Red Hood answered, tossing the object between her hands. Whatever else she might have said was swallowed by the door sliding open and more armored troops arriving. She threw the object into the air and fired more armor-piercing shock arrows at them, taking them out of commission. She caught the egg-shaped object just in time, only for her thumb to brush it. Instantly, the object glowed and fragmented into a gate of luminescent energy.

"What did you do?" Nightstar asked.

"Nothing!" Red Hood replied, just before she was ripped into her component atoms and yanked through the portal. Nightstar barely managed to grab her hand before she, too, was ripped into her component atoms and yanked through the portal. The portal closed behind them, leaving no trace of either the girls or the thing that had spawned it behind.

* * *

Nightstar and Red Hood recomposed in what looked like the main room of Titans Tower. However, it was vastly different from the main room in either the Jump City Tower or the Steel City Tower. Flat-panel computer displays covered the walls. There were couches and sofas, but they seemed to be an afterthought, swiveling chairs taking up the majority of the furniture in the main room.

"You're here," a deep, raspy voice spoke, causing the two girls to turn around to see who was speaking to them. The speaker turned out to be Batman, or more accurately, someone dressed similarly to him. His costume was predominantly black, with a blood-red bat emblazoned on the chest. A silver utility belt with curved, vaguely claw-like compartments and an oval buckle wrapped around his waist. Three sharp fins extended from his forearms and a gray-lined black cape with tattered scallops covered his shoulders. His cowl left his mouth and jaw exposed, much like the cowl of the original Batman's costume, but twin fangs protruded from it at either side of his mouth. Those, along with the smaller fangs decorating the end of the cowl, gave him a greater resemblance to the creature that was his inspiration than either Bruce Wayne's or Tim Drake's Batsuits did.

Nightstar looked at "Batman," noting a certain familiar tone to his voice. "Ibn?" she asked. "Is that you?"

"You know my former title," "Batman" answered, his voice still so achingly familiar to the half-Tamaranean girl.

Just then, five others arrived. The first was a partly Asian young woman with lime green eyes, dark hair, and dressed in skintight red leather with twin crisscrossing belts around her hips and a small red arrowhead tattoo beneath her left eye. The second was a dark-haired, violet-eyed boy in a blue-and-black wetsuit distinguished by wave patterns dividing the blue from the black. The third appeared to be a female Flash with long red hair sticking out of her mask. The fourth was an Asian young woman dressed in a black leather jacket over a black combination bustier-leotard and boots with fishnet stockings. The fifth was a young man with sandy brown hair dressed in a skintight blue suit with red boots, belt, and cape – along with a very familiar S-shield.

Red Hood's eyes widened in shock behind her sunglasses upon seeing the red-clad Asian girl. Aside from the black hair, they could have almost been twins, notwithstanding the fact that the leather-clad one seemed older than Red Hood. It seemed that Nightstar realized this, too, as her eyes rapidly moved between the two, silently analyzing their apparent similarities and differences.

"Batman," "Superboy" asked. "What do you want us to do about them?"

"We knew this was going to happen, Superboy," Batman answered. "The dimensional barriers have been in flux. Other realities have been bleeding into ours."

"Way to state the obvious," the "Flash" remarked sarcastically, and her voice made both Red Hood and Nightstar gape at her.

"Iris?" Nightstar asked.

"You must know me in your universe," the Flash concluded.

"Way to state the obvious," Nightstar repeated with the same sarcastic tone Alt-Iris-slash-Flash had used on this universe's Batman.

"How many of us have counterparts in your universe?" Batman asked sharply.

"In my universe, I knew you as Ibn al Xu'ffasch, or Terry McGinnis," Nightstar replied. "Your Lian and my Lian have already met. The boy in the wetsuit looks and dresses a lot like Cerdian in my universe, but I can't be sure he answers to that name here."

"I do," Alt-Cerdian stated.

"The Iris in my universe is Kid Flash, but your Iris seems to have taken the identity of the Flash," Nightstar continued. "Your universe's Black Canary and Superboy are the only ones I don't know."

"Call me Sin," Black Canary replied, with a hint of an Asian accent. "Superboy here is Chris."

"Sin, huh?" Red Hood remarked. "Sounds like you and I might get along."

"It was the name I was given," Sin answered simply, although there appeared to be a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

"And what do you call yourself, sis?" Red Hood asked Alt-Lian.

"Dart," Alt-Lian replied. "Want to see why?"

"If you two are here, we don't have much time left," Batman interrupted, cutting off any answer Red Hood might have given. "The multiple universes are hemorrhaging and the consequences may be irreversible if it isn't stopped." He stared at Nightstar and Red Hood long and hard, the cold whiteness of his lenses proving quite intimidating. "Who are you?"

"I'm Nightstar and this is Red Hood," Nightstar introduced.

"We came here with this," Red Hood asked, holding up the egg-shaped object that had turned out to be a dimensional portal.

"Hand it over," Batman ordered. "I'm going to have Superboy analyze it to determine if we can use it to send you back to your universe."

"Sure," Red Hood replied, tossing the portal generator to Batman, who handed it to Superboy, who began intently gazing at it. Nightstar had been around Kryptonians long enough to know that when they began intently gazing at something, they were using their X-ray vision.

"It's amazing," Superboy spoke. "The circuitry is incredibly small, yet extremely intricate. If I did it at super-speed, I might have a chance of figuring it out before Hypertime collapses on itself."

"How much do you know about what's happening?" Nightstar asked.

"Enough to know that this isn't natural," Batman replied. "Someone is behind this. Someone reckless enough or uncaring enough to sacrifice the stability of time and reality itself to accomplish whatever objective they have in mind."

"Damn good detective work," Red Hood commented. "That's exactly what's happening. There's an army called the Scryed that's been going around stealing the energy sustaining various universes. Without that energy, those universes die out and the energy that once kept them going is redistributed among the remaining universes, making them all stronger. The Scryed intend to do this until their universe is the only one remaining and they can become gods or something like that."

"They won't live long enough to see their objective come true," Batman snarled. "Hypertime will fall apart long before that happens."

"What do we do while Superboy is busy reverse-engineering the Scryed's tech?" Red Hood asked.

"We try to keep this universe from falling apart worse than it already has," Dart answered. "That means we keep the peace."

"Falling apart?" Red Hood asked.

"You'll see," Batman replied grimly.

* * *

The Titans, sans Superboy, entered the city, finding downtown to be a scene out of a nightmare. The city square was a place of chaos. Cars were on fire, plate-glass windows of shops stood broken, and gangs rampaged through the streets on motorcycles terrorizing any hapless person just trying to escape and fighting each other. One of the gangs was dressed like punk clowns, wearing greasepaint and twisted versions of clown or jester outfits. The other gang was marked by pale makeup and red T's over their faces.

"What the hell is this?" Nightstar asked, horrified. She had never seen such unabashed and naked violence in her life, not even when she had been patrolling Blüdhaven. Then again, her father had reformed Blüdhaven to the point that it was a safer place to live than it had been when he first arrived, safe enough to raise a family.

"Hell," Dart replied bluntly. "That's what it's been since the other realities began to bleed into ours. When people think the world is going to end, they decide nothing's worth anything and become no better than animals."

"Canary," Batman ordered, "introduce us."

Black Canary reached into her jacket and pulled out several tiny spheres, pressing the tops of all of them in quick succession. Faint lights glimmered on each one, signaling that they were primed. She threw them into the midst of the warring motorcycle gangs and they emitted a loud sonic pulse set to the A flat frequency. The gangsters cried out in agony, covering their ears to protect them from the sound.

Batman descended from the rooftop, his cape spread out like great demonic wings. He landed in between the scattered gangsters and a savage beating followed, with steel-reinforced fists and feet smashing bones and knocking out teeth. He was a flurry of terrible and awesome violence, showing no mercy to those who were on the receiving end.

"Aren't you going to stop him?" Nightstar asked the Alt-Titans.

"No," Dart replied. "We're going to help." She jumped into the fray, a flurry of darts and other thrown weapons embedding themselves in the vulnerable flesh of various gangsters. The gangsters collapsed, entering convulsions or regurgitating or even clawing at their own flesh.

Red Hood looked upon what her other self had done with horror. "You poisoned those things, didn't you?" she concluded.

"Nonfatal toxins," Dart clarified. "We don't want to kill anybody. We want them incapacitated. Toxins are a good way of doing that."

At this point, Black Canary, Alt-Cerdian, and the Flash had also entered the fray. Black Canary, like Batman, was a flurry of violence, but it was more graceful, flowing, and controlled. Alt-Cerdian burst a fire hydrant and manipulated the water into dousing the flames, while the Flash sped as many innocent people as she could out of harm's way.

"Who are these people?" Nightstar asked as she battled the gangsters, energy wire slicing through their weapons like a regular wire through wet clay.

"The clowns are the Jokerz," Batman explained as he threw a punch into a clown-styled gangster's throat. "The Joker's death somehow spawned a legion of death-worshipping piles of garbage just like him – marauders, rapists, and killers of the worst variety. The T-faced ones are the T's, just as bad as the Jokerz, but more organized and not as much into killing and terror for its own sake. Doesn't matter; they're both scum and they're both going down _hard._" He emphasized the last word by spinning and _slashing_ a T with the scallops on his cape. The T fell down bleeding and screaming.

"What was that?" Nightstar asked.

"Justice," Batman answered coldly, delivering a roundhouse kick to a Joker's solar plexus. The kick was hard enough to make him crumple into an agonized heap.

Eventually, the Jokerz and T's were all lying on the street in heaps of various kinds. Some were still conscious but in a great deal of agony. Others were passed out from the convulsions inflicted on them by Dart's poisoned weapons. There were those who were covered in bloody scratches from the hallucinogens that had been included in those poisons. The T that had been slashed by the scallops of Batman's cape was still bleeding and it didn't look like he was going to stop anytime soon.

"We have to help him," Nightstar said.

"Why should we?" Batman questioned.

"Are you a killer, Ibn?" Nightstar asked. "Is that what Grandpa Bruce wanted the Batman to become?"

"That is no longer my title," Batman snarled, his white lenses almost lurid with the fury in the eyes behind them. "Do not call me that ever again, Nightstar."

"Then what do I call you?" Nightstar questioned. "You certainly aren't acting like any Batman I'd recognize."

The Alt-Titans and Red Hood looked at Batman and Nightstar, their eyes warily moving between one and the other. Unlike Nightstar and Red Hood, the Alt-Titans knew all too well that this Batman was quite the dangerous man when angered. Of course, Batman was a dangerous man all the time, but his anger upped the danger level considerably. He would not actually explode, but he would seethe and a seething Batman was not a Batman any of them wanted to be around.

"We're going back to the Tower," the Dark Knight declared.

* * *

The Titans filed into the Tower somberly. Once inside, Batman called for Superboy. "Superboy! Have you figured that thing out yet?"

The Boy of Steel materialized in front of the other Titans, having moved at super-speed. He ran a hand through his sandy brown hair and answered, "I'm very close."

"Not good enough," Batman spoke brusquely. "It's getting worse out there."

"I'm doing the best I can, Damien," Superboy said. "I may have 'super'-intelligence, but that doesn't mean I'm a miracle worker."

"Just keep working on it," Batman answered. "I'll send Nightstar to help. Her mother's people – if I'm right on whose daughter she is in her universe – are advanced enough that she should know enough to assist you."

"I could use the fresh mind," Superboy answered with a sigh of relief. He departed back into the Titans Tower laboratory, Nightstar following with a last backwards look that told Batman that their little tiff was by no means over. Batman merely stared at her with a carefully crafted look of cold indifference.

* * *

As Nightstar and Superboy worked on solving the mystery of the dimensional portal generator, the Tamaranean hybrid turned to the Boy of Steel. "Superboy?" she asked.

"What is it, Nightstar?" Superboy inquired.

"What's wrong with Bat – Damien?" Nightstar asked. "What made him this way?"

"What do you mean?" Superboy questioned.

"When I saw him in battle, he was vicious," Nightstar explained. "Merciless. Brutal. For X'Hal's sake, he sliced someone with his cape."

"Damien . . . is really messed up," Superboy replied. "Blame his mother. She raised him for the first six years of his life and molded him into a vicious killer. His father, the original Batman, tried to retrain him and he eventually took to it, but every minute of his life, he walks a tightrope between what his father taught him and what his mother raised him to be. Sometimes, he falls a little closer to the other side, but what keeps me following him – what keeps us all following him – is that deep down, no matter what he thinks of himself, he's a good man."

Nightstar sighed and returned to working on the portal generator. After ten minutes, she spoke again, this time asking, "Do I exist in this reality?"

"No," Superboy replied sadly. "This world's version of your parents didn't stay together long enough to have you. The Dick Grayson I know eventually settled down with Donna Troy. They have a ten-year-old girl, spitting image of Dick, but she's got Donna's eyes. Her name's Hayley Diana Grayson." He turned to Nightstar with a gentle smile. "A little help, please?"

* * *

In the meantime, Red Hood and Dart were talking in the main room of Titans Tower. "Since when did you use poisons in your weapons?" Red Hood asked. "And why don't you use a bow?"

"A bow is difficult to carry around," Dart replied, "even if it's a collapsible one. I find thrown weapons much easier to use, since I can carry a lot of them without them weighing me down too much. As for the poisons, that was an influence from our dear mother."

"Those guys that were clawing at themselves . . . that was some kind of hallucinogen, wasn't it?" Red Hood concluded.

"Yeah," Dart replied.

Red Hood looked at the tattoo below Dart's left eye. "That must have hurt when you got it," she remarked.

"I'm good at taking pain," Dart answered. The remark was probably intended to be lighthearted and casual, but there was something dark in the alternate Lian's eyes that wrecked the effect. Changing the subject, she asked, "Does Cerdian exist in your world?"

"Yeah," Red Hood replied. "Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to know if you were involved with him," Dart responded idly, her lime green eyes twinkling with mischief.

"He's a stone wall when it comes to romance," Red Hood said, "although he seemed to like it when I was playing with him with my foot."

"That's funny, because my Cerdian is usually so . . . receptive," Dart whispered sultrily. At that moment, Black Canary sidled up behind Red Hood, a hand on the archer's hip.

"You intrigue me," the inheritor of Black Canary's mantle spoke. "You are so much like Dart and yet so much unlike her. Your hair . . . your idealism . . . your innocence, for lack of a better term."

"Innocence," Red Hood chuckled, trying to cover up her hesitance at Black Canary's nearness. "I haven't been innocent in a long while."

At that moment, Nightstar and Superboy returned from the laboratory. "I think we can send them back now, Damien," the Boy of Steel told the Dark Knight.

"Good," Batman answered. "Do it now."

"So soon?" Red Hood asked. "Gee, I'm hurt. You showed me a good time, got what you wanted, and now you don't want me anymore. I think I might cry."

"Cry on Nightstar's shoulder, then," Batman retorted.

Nightstar took the portal generator from Superboy and thumbed it. Instantly, the generator glowed and burst into a bright gateway, swirling with purplish energy. Red Hood walked up to Nightstar and the two of them stood by the gateway, ready to leave.

"You don't have to become a monster to fight monsters," Nightstar spoke to Batman. Then the gateway sucked her and Red Hood into it and closed, the portal generator vanishing with it. The two girls reemerged into the very dimension they left, only to be surrounded by their fellow Titans in a giant group hug.

* * *

"What happened to you two?" Beast Girl asked.

"Yeah, you were gone for . . . well, it felt like forever!" Mercury added.

"It's a long story," Nightstar replied. "What happened to the Scryed?"

"While you two were gallivanting around wherever it was you were, we were kicking ass," Flamebird answered. "We managed to stop that siphoning machine, but I don't think we've seen the last of those guys."

When the Titans returned to the Steel City Titans Tower, they found a surprise waiting for them. It looked like a very high-tech karaoke machine. Cyborg stood beside it, sheathed in golden liquid metal and smiling widely, looking as though he were the cat that caught the canary.

"A karaoke machine?" Mercury asked, sounding excited. "Sweet!" He sped to the machine, picked up the microphone, and began manipulating the screen. He started by adjusting the search engine to use genre as a filter. Upon selecting his chosen genre, he scrolled through various songs until he found the one he wanted. Immediately, the music started and he tapped his foot to the beat, shifting his uniform into a black suit jacket over a halfway unbuttoned white dress shirt and black pants.

Inferno groaned. "Good God, is this gonna make me want to drive railroad spikes into my ears." His answer from Mercury was a smirk as the platinum-haired speedster began to sing.

"_You don't know how you took it,_

_You just know what you got_

_Oh Lordy, you've been stealing from the thieves_

_And you got caught_

_In the headlights_

_Of a stretch car_

_You're a star."_

Inferno blinked once, twice, and thrice. He was shocked. He was in disbelief. Beside him, Samara was in a similar state, but she had enough composure to jibe to him, "Looks like he took those singing lessons."

"_Dressing like your sister,_

_Living like a tart_

_They don't know what you're doing_

_Babe, it must be art_

_You're a headache_

_In a suitcase_

_You're a star."_

He sauntered over to Beast Girl with a slow, measured grace in his motions. His amber eyes seemed to be alight with embers as he looked upon her, his orbs locking onto hers. She found herself spellbound by the look in his eyes.

"_Oh no, don't be shy_

_You don't have to go by_

_Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me."_

Leaving his elfin lover utterly nonplussed, he strolled away from her and continued his song. There was an almost clear smirk in his eyes, the kind that came only from knowing he had his audience in the palm of his hand.

"_You don't know how you got here_

_You just know you want out_

_Believing in yourself_

_Almost as much as you doubt_

_You're a big smash_

_You wear it like a rash_

_Star."_

"It looks like the Steel Angels are going to have some competition," Nightstar whispered to Red Hood.

"Yeah," Red Hood whispered. "I think he's compensating for the lack of a sex god on your team."

"_Oh no, don't be shy_

_It takes a crowd to cry_

_Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me._

"_They want you to be Jesus_

_They'll go down on one knee_

_But they'll want their money back_

_If you're alive at thirty-three_

_And you're turning tricks_

_With your crucifix_

_You're a star._

"_(Oh child.)"_

Mercury walked toward Beast Girl again, weaving a sonic web of allure as he did. _"Of course you're not shy/You don't have to deny love/Hold me, thrill me, kiss me –"_ He surprised her by ghosting his lips across hers for a single moment _"– kill me. . . ."_

As the song's melody continued on, the female Titans were all looking at Mercury in a new light. Never would any of them have suspected – except for Beast Girl – that the hyperactive, somewhat immature and childish speedster would be capable of such sexual magnetism with only his voice. Lilim began to lick her lips, wondering if she'd ever have the chance to test a speedster's stamina.

It didn't seem like the succubus would get that opportunity, as Beast Girl grabbed Mercury by the arm, a fierce glimmer in her eyes, and said, "You're coming with me." That would be the last any of the Titans saw of the platinum-haired speedster and the emerald elf for a while.

* * *

Later, Red Hood observed Nightstar looking out the window in deep thought. She walked up to her and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"Damien," Nightstar replied somberly. "He seemed so . . . lost, like somebody just took away his anchor."

"He'll be all right," Red Hood said. "He's got his team." She suddenly grinned. "You have a crush on him, don't you?"

"I do not!" Nightstar contradicted indignantly.

"Oh yes, you do," Red Hood insisted. "Always the dark and brooding kind with you, but then a lot of girls are attracted to men who resemble their fathers."

"Yeah, yeah, Miss Freud," Nightstar grumbled, just before bursting out into laughter with Red Hood, clinging to the archer for support. After the laughter died down, she looked into Red Hood's eyes despite the sunglasses blocking them from her vision. "Don't ever change."

"Me, change?" Red Hood asked. "I'm static, baby."

* * *

End Notes: If you wanted to see more of the Scryed, I'm afraid they were a device to get Nightstar and Red Hood into that alternate universe. However, the effects of their scheme will be revisited and elaborated on in a continuation story featuring Pietro Allen, the alternate-universe doppelganger of Mercury.

The gangs that appeared in that alternate universe were the Jokerz and the T's, both gangs that exist in the continuity of Batman Beyond. Therefore, you can assume that the alternate Titans are located in Gotham City.

The song Mercury was singing was U2's "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me." I rather enjoy that song, as it is pure voice sex, and I thought it'd be fun if Mercury used it to serenade Beast Girl.

Additionally, all the alternate-universe Titans are based on characters who appear in comic canon as the children of various heroes. Lian, Cerdian, and Iris you already know as the children of Roy Harper (Speedy/Arsenal), Garth (Aqualad/Tempest), and Wally West (Flash III; I've modified animated canon slightly so that Wally started out as a new Flash with ties to Barry Allen instead of being his sidekick). Damien is Batman's son with Talia, reintroduced from the "Son of the Demon" storyline in the recent "Batman & Son" tale by Grant Morrison. Sin is the adopted daughter of Dinah Lance, the current Black Canary, as of issue #95 of Birds of Prey. The Superboy that appears here is a Kryptonian boy sired by General Zod (a Kryptonian criminal who escaped from the prison dimension known as the Phantom Zone) and adopted by Superman in recent Superman comics. In all honesty, this story is kind of an introduction for them, so I want to see how well you liked their appearance here and if you found them interesting at all.


	40. Side Story 15: Speed Matrix

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Side Story 15: "Speed Matrix"

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. The characters of Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; the former belongs to DC Comics and the latter belongs to DC and Marvel via Amalgam. Everyone else, except anyone you recognize from the comics or other comic-related media, belongs to me.

Author's note: This story was actually inspired by an idea I found in the DC Comics Message Boards on how various dissatisfied readers of the post-Infinite Crisis Flash would have handled the re-launch. You'll find out what that idea is in the course of the reading, so what are you waiting for?

* * *

"This is not an easy decision for me. The five of you have caused me no shortage of distress just by your very presence. You are, to borrow a term from a government far wiser than I have been, persons of mass destruction, liable to endanger your more mortal peers. However, a certain Richard Grayson has fought tooth and nail to compel me to let you all come back. As I do not feel like being sued for being a 'bigot,' you've all been readmitted to this school. There is one stipulation for your readmission: no powers. No costumes and no powers. I see a flicker of flame or light, I hear the slightest wind, I feel the slightest dent in the walls – and none of you will be allowed to come back ever. Am I clear on this?"

"Are you exaggerating? 'Cause the flicker of flame could easily be some kid trying to sneak a smoke."

"I'm sorry; I had no idea this was comedy hour, Mr. Allen. And please, do not slouch in front of me. I expect you to be alert."

The other four Titans looked uneasily at the two. One was a platinum-haired, amber-eyed sixteen-year-old boy dressed in a gray hoodie and blue jeans, known as both Peter Maxwell Allen and the speedster hero Mercury. The other was a brunette woman in her mid-thirties sitting behind a large mahogany desk, wearing unfashionably large glasses and dressed in a severe business suit, known as Principal Elizabeth Alderman. It was not a big secret that she disliked metahumans, particularly the teenage ones; "the power of gods in hormone-charged bodies," she was fond of saying.

Currently, Peter Allen had bags under his eyes and was pinching the bridge of his nose. He forced himself into an upright position in his seat, glaring at Principal Alderman. "You know," he said, "you'd probably not be such a bad person if you had someone in your life. You married?"

"Merrily divorced, not that that's any of your business," Principal Alderman sneered. "Any further inquiries about my personal life and you'll be spending the first week of your schooling in detention. Anyway, I just called you here to make sure you know where you stand with me and in this school. Have a good day."

The five Titans – Mar'i Grayson, Joh'n Grayson, Peter Allen, Terri Logan, and Jeremiah Crockett – filed out of the principal's office. Once they had gotten some distance away from the office, Mar'i turned to Peter. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm chill," Peter replied. "Chill as ice, that's me."

"You sure?" Terri asked. "Because you got bags under your eyes. You never have bags under your eyes."

"I'm ok," Peter answered. "I'm just feeling a bit out of it."

* * *

In homeroom, Peter watched his new teacher with a vague amount of interest. His new teacher was a woman, a woman in her early thirties with long black hair and silver-green eyes. She was dressed in a creamy blouse and black slacks, which complemented her hair nicely. She was currently writing her name on the digital board via a stylus.

"As you can see," she said upon finishing, "my name is Miss Winchester. I'm going to spend the next school year as your homeroom teacher and I'd like to get to know you before you all go to your first classes, so introduce yourselves."

One by one, the students introduced themselves. It was all a blur to Peter, who felt it difficult to focus on any one particular thing. Usually, he could bring himself to focus, as long as he slowed himself down to match the speeds of the people around him. This time, it wasn't a matter of mental acceleration; it was just a dull throb at the front of his head combined with drowsiness that prevented him from concentrating.

"You, with the bleached hair," Miss Winchester spoke.

"Uh, me?" Peter asked.

"Would you like to introduce yourself?" Miss Winchester asked.

"Yeah," Peter replied, rising to his feet. "I'm Peter Allen."

As soon as he said that, he looked around and saw girls staring at him with lovesick expressions. "Why are you all looking at me like that?" he asked, but the only answer he received was shy giggles and blushes.

"It seems you're very popular with the ladies, Peter," Miss Winchester remarked casually. "Anyway, you may sit down now."

Peter gratefully took his seat as the remaining students introduced themselves. After the homeroom period was over, he went on his way to his first class, which was a physics course. There was one reason he was looking forward to that course and that was his powers. The Speed Force might allow him to defy certain physical laws when using his powers, but that didn't mean it wasn't useful to learn.

Unfortunately, he found himself zoning out. Not by any will of his own or lack of interest on his part, but just because of the throbbing in his head and his drowsiness. The typing of his notes on his JCHS-assigned laptop was growing more and more sluggish. Finally, he just collapsed on his laptop and began passing out.

Suddenly, something awakened him, compelling him to snap into an upright position very quickly. "What the f –?"

"Dude, class's over," Schuyler answered.

"Aw, man," Peter uttered. "Mr. Holbrook is going to kill me, isn't he?"

"No, but he's not gonna think that highly of you the next time he sees you," Schuyler quipped.

"I'm glad you can make light of my pain," Peter groaned.

"Come on, man, what's wrong?" Schuyler asked.

"Nothing," Peter replied. "I'm just a bit out of it, that's all."

The school day continued on in this fashion up until lunch. Peter would try his hardest to concentrate in class, but would ultimately fail due to his headache and drowsiness. The drowsiness would ultimately drive him into taking an unnecessary and impromptu nap, leaving his teachers severely inclined to hate his guts.

* * *

Finally, lunch rolled around and Peter was sitting at the lunch table with his fellow Titans. He had his chin on his chest and his hair hanging down. He looked as though he was sleeping or just too tired to keep his head up.

"What's happening, man?" Jeremiah asked.

"What do you mean, what's happening?" Peter asked with false nonchalance.

"It's been happening for the past week or so," Jeremiah answered. "You're constantly tired, you're hardly able to pay attention to a thing anybody says, and it's a wonder you haven't gotten yourself or someone else killed out on patrol."

"I'm fine," Peter said. "It's just . . . I'm feeling a bit under the weather, that's all."

"Can't you just speed that out of your system?" Terri asked.

"I've tried," Peter replied. "It just comes back after I sleep."

"Even if you wake up tired, shouldn't you be able to get over it pretty quickly?" Terri questioned.

"Yeah, in theory," Peter responded. "But it's not just drowsiness. I have this throbbing headache and it makes thinking hurt."

"After school, why don't we take you for a checkup?" Joh'n suggested. "We can even bring in Dr. Mid-Nite for some help."

"Sure," Peter acceded.

"Your fangirls are squeeing in your direction," Terri remarked bitingly, causing the young speedster to turn around and see girls blushing and giggling and squealing quietly around him.

"I don't get what their problem is," Peter groaned. "I never asked for fangirls."

* * *

After school was over, the platinum-haired speedster found himself with a considerable amount of homework on his hands and a number of teachers who now hated his guts. The other Titans also had homework, but they probably didn't have their teachers hating them for no good reason – unless those teachers held anti-meta ideologies. They greeted Samara, who was busy reading a medical textbook.

"How's college treating you so far?" Jeremiah asked.

"Splendid," Samara drawled before turning to Peter. "You're sick."

"I am?" Peter asked.

"That's why we're taking him to the infirmary," Mar'i said, "so we can find out what's wrong with him and how to make it better."

In the infirmary, Samara and Jeremiah attached electrical nodes to Peter's head and bare torso. Peter just grinned at Samara and asked, "Like what you see?"

Samara didn't answer him, simply opting to use the machine to which the nodes were connected to run a diagnostic scan of his body and brain. Within a mere five minutes, the scan was complete and she turned even paler than normal, prompting Peter to ask, "What's wrong?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong," she answered. "Your relationship to the energy that powers you has changed. You're undergoing a form of mutation as we speak and your body is trying to adapt to it."

"Mutation?" Peter asked. "Into what?"

"I don't know," Samara replied. "But the readings I'm getting are far unlike your regular readings, which indicate some kind of mutagenic process."

That night, Peter found himself confined to his bed, which he conceded was a good idea. With how he'd been feeling as of late, he probably wouldn't do much good out there. He had a cold compress on his forehead, but it wasn't helping the headache go away.

_If only Terri came in dressed like a nurse,_ he thought. _I'd start feeling better right away._ Without anything else to do, he allowed himself to pass into sleep.

* * *

Meanwhile, the five Titans were busily containing a prison break at Alcatraz, which had been revamped about twenty years ago as a prison to contain metahuman criminals. The prisoners were injected with nanites that would allow them to be tracked by the prison supervisors wherever they went, even if they were to escape. Additionally, the prisoners were kept in power-dampening cells specifically attuned to their powers. It was supposed to be foolproof and inescapable, but nothing that was supposed to be foolproof and inescapable actually was. It just took more tenacity, intelligence, and determination than the usual.

Firefly and Dr. Blaze were busy tag-teaming Inferno, both of them assaulting him with their flames, which he absorbed and turned against them. Beast Girl and Gemini were fighting each other in a flurry of shape-changing attacks, Gemini stretching her limbs into vicious blows and Beast Girl morphing into various animal forms to evade and attack. Samara and Hex were throwing shadow magic and hex magic at each other, but Hex spiced up her attacks with surprising bursts of speed that floored the partly demonic girl.

"How did you do that?" Samara asked.

"That's a secret," Hex answered teasingly.

Nightstar and Bladefire were fighting Multiplicity, who was multiplying himself constantly. Every time they struck down one of him, two more would simply take his place. Nightstar lashed out with her energy wire, slicing apart various Multiplicities, but Multiplicity-Prime just seemed to keep generating doppelgangers.

Suddenly, multiple blue-silver blurs raced into the scene, attacking the multiple Multiplicities, which found themselves dissipating against the force of the blurs' assault. Multiplicity-Prime looked around him in confusion and horror as his doppelgangers were eliminated by the blurs.

"Oh, goddammit!" he shouted. "It's that speed freak again! And he brought friends!"

Several of the blurs split off to deal with Multiplicity, while others moved on to fight the other criminals that had been set loose. Multiplicity tried to multiply himself again, but the blurs' assault prevented him from doing so. Two more blurs interposed themselves between Beast Girl and Gemini and assaulted Gemini faster than she could follow, let alone react. Gemini tried to catch the blurs in mid-motion, but they were far faster than even she could extend herself. Other blurs attacked Blaze and Firefly, snuffing them out before they could ignite. Hex attempted to attack the blurs on her with hex waves and speed, but even if she could see who it was attacking her, she could not prevent it.

The blurs raced through Alcatraz, leaving criminals desperate for freedom bewildered by the speed and fury with which their dreams were dashed. Even the Titans were surprised by how easily the criminals were contained by the mysterious blurs, which departed following the re-containment of the prisoners.

"Gotta be a speedster," Inferno concluded. "Nothing on Earth could move that fast without being a speedster."

"Except who was it?" Nightstar asked. "It seemed to be more than one of them, but speedsters can move so quickly that they seem to be in multiple places at once."

"It was more than one of them," Samara answered. "Specifically, more than one of the same person. Those blurs were all guided by a singular mind, which makes me think that it's a speedster who can duplicate like Multiplicity."

"Like a hive mind?" Beast Girl asked.

"Yeah, something like that," Samara replied.

"Whoever it was or whoever they were, we owe him-her-them a 'thank you,'" Bladefire said.

* * *

When the Titans returned to their Tower, Beast Girl went to Peter's room to see how he was doing. When she got there, she was quite startled to find him not in his bed or anywhere in his room. She immediately pulled out her communicator and flipped it open, calling the other Titans, who sped to Peter's room.

"What happened?" Nightstar asked.

"He's gone!" Beast Girl exclaimed. "Peter's gone!"

Bladefire narrowed his eyes and flipped open his communicator. "I've instructed the comm. system to track Mercury's communicator. If he's out there, we'll find him."

"We might have a problem," Nightstar said. "His communicator signal is moving rapidly, maybe too rapidly for us to catch him."

"Where's he going?" Inferno asked.

"He's headed east," Bladefire replied, looking more closely at Mercury's communicator signal. "If the GPS is right . . . he's gone to Keystone."

"What would he want in Keystone?" Inferno wondered.

"We'll worry about that when we catch him," Bladefire answered.

* * *

In Keystone City, the Flash was trapped in a dome of mirrors created by Mirror Mistress. Each mirror reflected Mirror Mistress's image, every single Mirror Mistress smiling maliciously at the Scarlet Speedster. The Mirror Mistresses held up laser handguns, pointing them at the Flash.

"Flash," Mirror Mistress spoke, her voice seeming to come from everywhere. "Are you ready to die?"

"You do realize that if I match my vibrations to the vibrations of your mirror dimension, you're not untouchable in there anymore, don't you?" the Flash remarked.

"I won't give you that chance," Mirror Mistress answered before her reflections fired their guns at the Flash. The Flash ran, jumped, and flipped all over the inside of the mirror dome, trying to evade the laser blasts. Unfortunately, light moved at 186 thousand miles per second and that was a speed the Flash could not achieve while in such a confined space. Therefore, several of the blasts managed to strike him, much to his discontent and pain. The lasers formed a kind of tangled web, preventing the Flash from moving too much for fear of being hit, as they were all being fired simultaneously.

Suddenly, there was something else moving in those mirrors, blurs of blue-silver attacking the reflections of Mirror Mistress. The Mirror Mistresses attempted to fight back, but the blurs were moving too quickly for them to retaliate effectively. As a result, the lasers stopped firing at the Flash, who looked at the blurs with accelerated perception. His eyes widened in shock when he saw who they were.

_What is he doing here?_ the Flash thought in bewilderment.

As soon as Mirror Mistress was knocked out of her mirror dimension (and just knocked out, period), the blur of blue-silver raced away. The Flash gave chase, determined to find out just what the other speedster thought he was doing. The blur continued to accelerate, however, moving faster than the Flash was willing to move in such a populated area. The Flash forced himself to accelerate, moving closer and closer to the mysterious speedster, who simply sped up again. Ultimately, the Flash was forced to concede the race to the other runner, but that did not matter. He already knew who it was.

* * *

By the next morning, Peter Allen awoke, feeling worse than he had when he went to sleep. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stumbled out of his bed, stripping off his clothes from last night and putting on a robe. He staggered to the bathroom and entered one of the shower stalls, throwing his robe over the side and turning on the hot water. He let the burning needles of liquid assault his skin, needing it to wake himself up.

Once he was finished, he reached for a nearby towel with which to dry himself off. After he was done with that, he put his robe back on and walked out of the shower, returning to his room to deodorize and dress himself. He came out of his room wearing a black-and-gray jacket over a royal blue shirt and black pants. When he reached the breakfast table, he found the other Titans waiting for him, all looking at him with very suspicious expressions.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You left the Tower when you were supposed to be resting," Mar'i replied. "When we were containing a prison break at Alcatraz, you showed up and helped us, even when we told you earlier that you had to rest because we didn't know if whatever changes you were going through were benign or harmful. Your father even called to say that you were in Keystone helping him defeat Mirror Mistress and then you ran away from him."

"I don't remember any of that," Peter said. "I was sleeping."

"Was that sleep-running, then?" Terri quipped bitingly.

Mar'i rose from the table and walked into the main room. "Computer, access Alcatraz Prison footage from the previous night, 10:42 p.m.," she instructed.

Immediately, the supercomputer screen flickered to life, showing footage from last night's attempted prison break. "Computer, slow down footage to one-twentieth regular speed," Mar'i instructed. The footage on the screen slowed down tremendously, allowing the Titans to see slightly blurry multiple Mercuries racing around containing the prisoners.

"Those aren't me," Peter said.

"They sure look like you," Samara remarked, "but you're right. I would have recognized the mind behind those moves and you were never able to replicate before."

"I think this has something to do with whatever's changing you," Jeremiah surmised. "I suggest you go see your uncle Max. If anyone knows enough to figure out what's up with you, it's probably him."

"Good idea," Peter agreed, "but I have to go to school."

"With the way your powers are affecting your ability to focus, it wouldn't be a good idea for you to go today," Joh'n brought up. "Go to Max. We'll try to cover for you."

"Thanks," Peter said.

While Mar'i, Joh'n, Terri, and Jeremiah went to school, Samara and Peter hung out at the Tower. "Look at it this way," Peter commented. "You and I can spend more time together, least till your first class comes up."

"That sounds good," Samara answered with a small sigh. "I was wrong about you."

"What do you mean?" Peter inquired.

"When we first started working together, I thought you were an impulsive, reckless idiot with too high an opinion of yourself," Samara admitted. "Then that day when Terri showed us what that maniac Zookeeper had done to her, you hugged her. You looked upon her real self without flinching or revulsion. That's when I changed my mind about you. You were still an impulsive, reckless idiot to me, but that wasn't all there was to you. I followed you sometimes, while you thought you were by yourself, and watched you visit the families of people who got caught in the middle of our battles. You cared. Behind the bravado and the stupidity, you cared."

Peter blushed. "I . . . never knew you thought that highly of me."

Samara chuckled softly. "Another reason I changed my mind on you. You're more humble than you act sometimes. Wanna meditate with me?"

"Sure," Peter replied.

The two went to the top of Titans Tower, where Samara sat with her legs crossed. Peter mirrored her position and the way she held her hands, with the tips of her index finger and thumb touching. "The key," Samara said, "is to find your center."

"And I do this by focusing on a mantra, right?" Peter asked.

"Yes," Samara confirmed. "Repeat after me: Azarath Terra Zaratha."

"Azarath Terra Zaratha," Peter repeated.

The two chanted, repeating "Azarath Terra Zaratha" lowly. As they chanted, Samara began to float off the ground, while Peter remained ground-bound due to the fact that his powers did not involve flight in any way. As he chanted, something else happened to him, though. That something was that he found himself once again disjointed from reality . . . and in a realm he recognized as the Speed Force. He saw the speedsters that had come and gone before him, including . . . the Gale Force of Hell. The sight of the demonic runner sent Peter scrambling to return to the real world.

"What's wrong?" Samara asked.

"I was in the Speed Force," Peter replied. "Or my spirit was. I saw Speed Demon there."

"This might not have been such a good idea," Samara admitted glumly. "I forgot you can traverse dimensions."

"It's ok," Peter said. "Besides, you have to hurry or you'll be late to your first class."

Samara looked at her watch and saw that her speedy companion was right. "I suppose you're right. Good luck, Peter. You may need it." With that said, she disappeared into a black warp below her feet, leaving Peter alone with his thoughts. The snow-haired speedster accelerated down the façade of Titans Tower and ran across the river to and through Jump City, moving east until he was in Keystone City. Once there, he found his way to Max Mercury's home, only to find that the eldest human speedster wasn't there._

* * *

_

_Stupid me, _he thought._ Of course he's not home; he's working. _Cursing his impatience, Peter chose to sit on the couch and busy himself with channel surfing. "Soap operas, trashy talk shows, trashy reality TV, music channels that are mostly reality TV and celebrity crap, reruns of sci-fi dramas . . ." The young speedster paused and returned to the last channel, which had a rerun of a sci-fi drama about a crew of space pirates. "Hey, this isn't so bad."

Several hours later, Max Crandall – alias Max Mercury – returned to his home to find Peter sitting on his couch watching TV. "Peter, not that I'm not happy to see you, but shouldn't you be in Jump City with the Titans?"

"There's something wrong with me, Max," Peter answered somberly.

"What is it?" Max asked.

"For the past week, I've been unable to focus, I've been getting headaches, and I'm sleeping my way through half the day," Peter replied. "Inferno and Samara checked me out and they say it's because my relationship to the Speed Force has changed and it's affecting my body. Mutagenic changes, they called it."

"I'll try to see what I can do," Max said. "In the meantime, turn off the TV. I need to be able to concentrate for this to work."

Peter obediently turned off the television set and Max sat down, beginning to meditate. As he meditated, he reached out to the Speed Force. Normally, it took a level of deep meditation to touch the Speed Force, but this time it was right in front of him. He felt the lightning, just within arm's length of him. Curious, he extended his Speed Force-granted extrasensory abilities to Peter, only for his eyes to almost open wide in shock. He felt the power of the Speed Force emanating from the boy as though it were pouring itself into and through him . . . and that was when Max realized the truth.

"Peter, I think I know what's happening to you," he said once he pulled himself out of his meditative state.

"What is it, Uncle Max?" Peter asked.

"The Speed Force is merging with you," Max replied. "It's not a complete melding; the lightning is still a separate realm, but your connection to it has evolved to such a degree that the Speed Force now channels itself through you. As it channels itself through you, it makes you a gateway for it, but it is a gate held ajar. The speedsters within can reenter the world through you, but only if your body contains their spirits."

"That explains why I could be at Alcatraz last night without knowing," Peter concluded. "One of the speedsters within the Speed Force took my body for a crime-fighting joyride. And that's why my dad thinks it was me who stopped Mirror Mistress."

"I understand if you feel violated," Max said.

"Damn right I feel violated," Peter answered sharply. "They had no right, no freaking right to take my body like that. You think you can help me commune with the Speed Force so that I can tell them what's what?"

"I think you will be able to do that yourself," Max responded. "The Speed Force is now part of you. You can reverse that connection to send your spirit into it to commune with those who have gone before you."

"All right," Peter said. "But show me how."

Peter meditated, the same way Max did. He stretched his spirit beyond the confines of his body, focused on his center, and found himself being pulled into the Speed Force. It was just like he had left it the first time, an omnipresent energy surrounding him. He could see the deceased speedsters before him.

"Listen up," he said. "I know you've been using my body. You're probably happy you can go back out into the world for a while, but quit it. That's my body you're using and you need to ask permission about that kind of thing."

A blond man dressed in a red-and-yellow costume with a mask that did not conceal his hair or the lower half of his face stepped forward, none other than Johnny Quick – father to Jesse Quick and grandfather to Jenny Quick. "We're sorry, Peter."

"He speaks for all of us," Barry Allen, the second Flash, agreed. "We should never have taken advantage of you the way we did. We simply had no way of communicating with you and we were so happy to be able to interact with the world again . . . but that's no excuse, not even if I wanted to see Wally and Bart and Iris."

"I suppose I can forgive you," Peter said. "You did a lot of good, while you were using my body."

Suddenly, the young speedster heard evil laughter as chains of hellfire wrapped around his body. "What the hell?" he asked, as the other speedsters reacted in shock.

"Just the opportunity I've been waiting for," a familiar demonic voice spoke, whirling Peter around to reveal his enemy's face. It was none other than the Gale Force of Hell, a.k.a. Speed Demon. Stripped of a human host, he was nothing but a humanoid mass of writhing demonic energy. Nevertheless, that did not prevent him from having a very evil expression in his burning eyes.

"Speed Demon!" Peter exclaimed. "How did you get out?"

"Those fools couldn't hold me," Speed Demon answered. "I'm going to make them pay for that and you're going to pay with them while I'm murdering your friends on the outside. I bet they're back at the Tower by now."

"Stay the hell away from them," Peter snarled.

"What are you going to do, speed brat?" Speed Demon taunted before throwing the young speedster into the mass of his fellow speedsters. The demonic runner tore for the gateway leading him to freedom, followed by Barry and Johnny and various other speedsters. Unfortunately, Speed Demon turned out to be faster than they were and escaped into the world . . . and into Peter's body.

* * *

In the material world, Max's eyes widened in horror when he felt the speed aura around Peter. That wasn't Peter's aura . . . it was that of the demon who had possessed Jace. _We are all in danger,_ he thought grimly.

Speed Demon-as-Peter Allen smiled evilly at Max Mercury. "I owe you a debt for imprisoning me," he sneered as his speed aura formed into black motorcycle leathers with red lightning adorning them. Peter's eyes, normally amber, were turned a hellish scarlet with glowing embers in his sclera.

"I'm not letting you leave here," Max said, changing into his costume.

"And what makes you think you can stop me?" Speed Demon asked, crackling hyperkinetic flame forming in his hand. He charged Max with a swiftness equivalent to that of a supercomputer's processing ability, ready to impale him with the ball. Max reacted quickly enough to grab him by the wrist and throw him into a wall. Speed Demon simply flipped off the wall and kicked Max in the head, disorienting him. He took advantage of Max's disorientation, flooring him with a wall of punches and kicks in the space of one second. Just before the demon sped away, he spat, "Told you."

* * *

Speed Demon raced west to Titans Tower, bursting through the door upon arriving. He dematerialized through the door, but he wasn't careful about it, triggering an explosion that shocked the other Titans. Relying on their shock to keep them off-balance, the demonic speedster swiftly took down Nightstar and Bladefire. Inferno shot a wall of fire at Speed Demon, but Speed Demon sucked the kinetic energy out of the flames and turned it on the pyromancer, knocking him into a far wall. Samara lashed out at him with her telekinesis, but he slid through the attack and kicked her in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her. A green tigress lunged at Speed Demon, but the hellish speedster grabbed her by the wrists and fell backward to kick-flip her off him. The tigress shifted into a tiger-human hybrid and landed on her feet, her legs spread out in a split and one hand on the floor. 

"You may move like him, but you're not him," she hissed.

"Glad you're so astute," Speed Demon answered mockingly. "To be honest, you I'm going to enjoy thrashing the most. I hate this boy. I hate him with a passion greater than that with which you could love him. Breaking you with his hands will torment him so . . . and I will enjoy every minute of it."

The demonic runner dodged a purple optic blast and later a blue optic blast. He moved out of the way of an energy whip and thrown energy knives. A wave of flame shot forth at Speed Demon, which he sliced through. He whirled in that same motion to shatter a telekinetic attack from Samara.

"Nice try, all of you," he spoke sarcastically, not even looking as he backhanded Beast Girl when she attempted a sneak attack.

"Computer, seal off the Tower," Nightstar ordered. "Authorization: Nightstar."

"_Sealing Titans Tower now,_" the voice of the Titans Tower supercomputer spoke, that speech followed by every entrance and exit in Titans Tower being sealed by gray barriers.

Speed Demon barked out a cruel laugh. "You fools think I'm trapped with you? I'm afraid you have it reversed. _You're_ trapped with _me._"

"And we've got you surrounded," Inferno answered. "I wouldn't be so cocky if I were you."

What followed was the five Titans attacking Speed Demon from all sides, forcing the demonic runner into overdrive to defend himself. Writhing darkness clawed at Speed Demon, who jumped out of the way and into a kick from Nightstar. He flipped to try to regain control, only to be struck by a fireball. He weathered that well enough, only to be sliced by Bladefire's energy blade. He speed-healed the resulting wound, only to be slashed by Beast Girl's claws. Like with the wound from Bladefire's sword, Speed Demon speed-healed that one. He snapped his fingers at super-speed, triggering a sonic boom that knocked the Titans off him.

Samara, seeing no other solution, engulfed herself in her soul-self and jumped inside Mercury's body. To her shock, she entered a world filled with an omnipresent energy that was electrifying and surreal. She searched for Mercury, finding him in chains with the deceased speedsters trying to unravel the chains. She stepped into their midst, her form darkness given a humanoid shape resembling her normal visage.

"I can help," she said. The speedsters parted to allow her near Mercury, sensing that she was no threat to them or Mercury. She touched the ungodly chains that bound him and dissipated them.

"Thanks," Mercury said, drawing upon the energy surrounding him to form his costume. He charged toward the gateway that was technically his body and reached through it to pull Speed Demon back. In the real world his body just collapsed and passed out, while in the Speed Force he and Speed Demon were battling just outside the gate. "You see that gate? That gate leads to my body . . . _my_ body. Got that?"

"Do you fools really think you can hold me?" Speed Demon asked as he kicked Mercury. "I will find another way to escape. I'm just too fast for the likes of you to actually confine me."

"And that's the attitude that cost you," Mercury retorted as he jumped into the air and kicked Speed Demon repeatedly at super-speed. "You think, because you're a demon, that you're so much better than us humans. Guess what? It was _humans_ that kicked your ass!" He accented that sentence with a fierce kick that sent the demon crashing into the midst of the human speedsters. "Learn some goddamn humility!"

Speed Demon prepared to attack, but Samara's soul-self expanded into a giant raven that engulfed him with her wings. Speed Demon thrashed viciously inside Samara's soul-self, but she would not release him. "What do you think you're doing, wench?" he asked angrily.

"Sending you someplace you won't harm anyone else," Samara answered, disappearing from the Speed Force with the demonic speedster. Mercury jumped into the shadowy warp just before it closed, wanting to make sure that whatever Samara did with Speed Demon, it would put a permanent end to the threat he posed. The three of them found themselves in a barren dimension with a red sun.

"What is this place?" Speed Demon questioned.

"A place where you can no longer harm anyone," Samara replied.

Speed Demon attempted to attack her at super-speed, only to find that he was far, far slower than he normally was. This allowed Samara to give him a backhanded smack that knocked him for a loop. An enraged Speed Demon tried to attack again, but Samara whirled into another strike that knocked him to the ground.

"I get it," Mercury, now a ghostlike entity, said. "The Speed Force is inaccessible in this dimension. Therefore, Speed Demon is more or less harmless, but that means I can't fight here, either."

"Exactly," Samara said. "He poses as much a threat as a normal human child would."

"Can we go back to the real world now?" Mercury asked. "I don't like being bodiless and I don't like not having my powers."

Samara would have smiled at him if her soul-self had had a mouth. Instead, she contented herself with an amused tilt of her head and took Mercury's hand, engulfing him inside her and carrying them both back into the real world. In said real world, Mercury awoke in his normal attire and with his eyes their normal shade of amber, only to be fiercely hugged by Beast Girl.

"Is that you, Peter?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied, looking her in the eyes. "It's me."

* * *

The next morning, the Titans – sans a college-going Samara – had just entered the school building. Currently, they were putting away their backpacks and other assorted things in their lockers. While that was happening, Peter sped over to Terri and whispered in her ear, "Wanna do something fun?"

"Depends on what you mean by fun," Terri answered softly.

Peter's hands gently grasped Terri's slim hips. "I think you can guess what I mean," he whispered.

"Here?" Terri asked with a slight note of panic in her voice. "What if we get caught?"

"We won't," Peter replied.

Suddenly, Terri felt a shift in her perceptions. She looked around and saw everything and everyone moving very, very slowly. She would have mistaken them for being frozen, but her acute senses managed to detect some motion, albeit very slow motion.

"What did you do?" she asked, slightly frightened.

"It's a new trick," Peter replied. "I'm kind of a conduit for the Speed Force, so I can let it flow through me and into someone else. Look at it this way . . . it means we can have our fun and still be in time for class."

Terri turned her head to look at Peter and smiled mischievously at him. "How about we do it right here? If we're as fast as I think we are, then we should be invisible to everyone else . . . or does that scare you?"

Peter smirked and turned her around so that they were facing each other. He pinned her to the locker door and one of his hands reached up to stroke her flaxen locks. "Nothing scares me," he retorted boldly just before capturing her lips in a heated kiss that quickly became more.

* * *

End Notes: All right, I see hardly anybody's been reviewing this story lately, and that's kind of odd because I know people are still reading. I'm not a review whore, but like any writer worth his or her salt, I like feedback. It lets me know if I'm doing a good job or if there's anything I could improve on. After all, if you guys posted a story for everyone on the Internet to see, you'd like to have somebody tell you how you did on it, wouldn't you?

In case you don't know, in the comic universe, Alcatraz Prison was revamped as a corrections facility for metahuman criminals, hence the Alcatraz here being used for the same purpose. If you're wondering why Mercury couldn't concentrate and was drowsy all the time, having those other speedsters use his body was draining on him. The speedster who could duplicate himself was inspired by Bart Allen in the comics, who gained the ability to create drones of himself from the Speed Force but stopped using it after the death of one put him in a coma. As for the ending, it was inspired by a Flash fic I read on someone's LiveJournal.

Enough out of me. Try to be kind enough to let me know what you think if I'm going to go to the trouble of posting this for you to read.


	41. Justice: Initiate

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 1: "Initiate"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. Aside from Nightstar, Mercury, Ravager, and Slade, a lot of the various other characters that will appear here do not belong to me. The ones that do belong to me . . . well, you're going to have a hard time telling the difference between canon (actually published by DC or appearing on-screen in a DC property) and non-canon (not published by DC or appearing on-screen in a DC property) unless you're a comic geek like me who likes looking up comic book characters and organizations on Wikipedia.

Author's note: This arc borrows a lot of elements from a lot of comics, mostly DC. The principal elements come from Villains United and The OMAC Project, but there are elements from 52, Kingdom Come, and Marvel's Civil War. DC fans, don't knock Marvel; they actually came up with an interesting crossover idea. Besides, this is the last arc I'm doing for this series, so it's best I end big. If you want to see how those elements come together, just read.

* * *

A streak of light zapped across the Western Hemisphere as it was pursued by a similar streak of light, only colored green. A blue blur tore across the sky after the light, followed by a red blur on the ground. Another flying blur accompanied the blue blur and a streak of electrical light followed along. Beyond them, a bluish-gray jet followed them, piloted by two people, one garbed like a demonic bat and the other garbed in crimson with a yellow cloak and red domino mask.

"Archer, can you track her?" Batman asked.

"Yeah," Scarlet Archer replied, "but it's tough keeping up when this thing can only go so fast."

"That's why we have the other five," Batman stated.

The green light, upon closer examination, was simply a girl ensconced in an emerald glow. The girl was garbed in skintight black with a white spot covering her chest and spreading to cover her sides, the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps shining proudly on that white spot. Black gloves with green studded bracelets covered her hands and white boots adorned her feet. A studded green collar covered her neck. The interesting thing about her was that her skin itself was green and her otherwise dark hair was streaked with it. She was none other than Jade Rayner, the Green Lantern of Earth after her recently late father.

The Green Lantern materialized a lasso and projected it at the streak of light she was pursuing at the speed of thought. The lasso managed to catch the streak of light just over Opal City, revealing it to be a dark-haired woman dressed in a black suit with an eight-pointed white star stretched over her chest. Another lasso, this one golden, joined the Lantern's emerald lasso, holding the woman fast.

"All right, Bright, time to talk," the holder of the golden lasso spoke. She was a woman with long blonde hair dressed in a red bustier with golden double bars designed to look simultaneously like a W and a flying eagle, a golden girdle, and a blue star-spangled miniskirt with red-and-white boots and golden bracelets. She was Cassandra Sandsmark, the inheritor of the Wonder Woman mantle after Diana had ascended to Olympus to become the Goddess of Truth.

"Please," Bright answered derisively. "Do you take me for the fool that my father was?"

"You might be able to travel at the speed of light, but don't think there's no one fast enough to keep up with you," Wonder Woman replied.

"And besides," another voice spoke up, "you're not invincible just because you control light." The person to whom the voice belonged appeared, an African-American man with long dreadlocks and garbed in a hooded blue jacket over a darker blue uniform with a yellow lightning bolt in a circle on his chest. He was Virgil Hawkins, but better known to both his heroic allies and his villainous foes as Static, and he was currently standing on a silver disk. Static caught Bright in an electromagnetic prison field and, along with Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, landed with her.

"You can talk now," Batman stated as he and Scarlet Archer emerged from the jet, "or you can talk five minutes later." The Flash halted his run and Superman landed before them.

"What's the difference?" Bright asked. "Five minutes doesn't leave time for much."

Batman smiled grimly underneath his mask. "You'd be surprised just how much can change in five minutes."

"Wanna demonstrate to her?" a female voice asked, silky and deadly. The Justice League turned their attention to the owner of that voice, a willowy woman garbed in black leather and gray chain mail-like mesh. The mesh covered her shoulders, arms, and sides, with a gray belt hanging loosely on her hips. Light armor covered her legs from the knees down and a burnt orange-and-black bisected mask covered her face up to her nose, leaving her lips and jaw exposed.

"Ravager," Batman snarled.

"Ravager," Superman echoed. "You usually tangle with the Titans. Bored with them now?"

Ravager smiled wickedly and reached under her mask, popping out a hidden lens in the black side of her mask. A black eye with a purple triplicate spiral surrounding the pupil opened. She spread her arms in a welcoming gesture.

Batman reached into his utility belt and pulled out six Batarangs, holding them between his fingers. He threw all of them at Ravager, whose visible eye widened insanely before she caught all six Batarangs, her arms moving with inhuman speed. She threw all of them back at Batman with superhuman force, barely allowing him to evade them. Then she seemed to vanish from the sights of the League, except the Flash.

"Green Lantern, look out!" he yelled, but for naught; Ravager had just tagged the emerald gladiatrix with a sonic weapon, disrupting the Lantern's focus so that she couldn't create a construct.

Scarlet Archer gritted her teeth in rage and fired her crossbow at Ravager, who ran straight at her while dodging the archer's bolts. She flipped into the air and Scarlet Archer drew her bow, extending it to its full size, nocking an arrow, and firing right at an aerial Ravager. The mercenary sliced the arrow in half with her sword and plummeted downward, slicing with her motion. Scarlet Archer moved out of the way, only to sacrifice her arrows as Ravager cut through her quiver. The archer discarded her broken quiver and slipped knuckles with blades extending from the sides onto her hands.

"Trench knives," Ravager observed. "Didn't think you heroes went for that kind of thing."

Scarlet Archer's only response was to attack Ravager with her trench knives. Ravager simply dodged every one of the archer's slashes, moving as though she knew exactly where the archer was going to be and taking care to stay just out of range. Scarlet Archer punched Ravager, who moved her head out of the way of both the punch and the slash that would have followed.

"Don't you get tired of being outmatched?" Ravager asked mockingly.

"All I see you doing is running from me," Scarlet Archer retorted, "which makes me think you're not nearly as badass as you like to think you are."

Ravager smiled. "Just remember, you _did_ ask for this."

Scarlet Archer didn't have time to ask what that meant before a vicious strike to the gut knocked her unconscious. "Who's next?" Ravager asked.

A burst of heat vision provided the mercenary with her answer, which she dodged. She launched herself into the air and sheathed her sword, replacing it with a Kryptonite-radiation "lightsaber." Just as she was starting to come down, Superman fired another blast of heat vision, which she deflected with the K-sword, the same sword that would have sliced him if Wonder Woman hadn't ensnared Ravager with her lasso. Zeus's lightning channeled itself through the lasso, which would have severely hurt Ravager if her suit hadn't been insulated.

"Nice try, Wonder Bitch," Ravager sneered. "Suit's insulated."

"All insulators eventually get overloaded," Wonder Woman answered. "I'll just need a stronger charge."

Ravager just smiled before flicking her wrist and the K-sword, which was now a simple knife, flew at Superman, impaling him in the stomach with it. The Man of Steel gasped and choked in pain, collapsing on the ground.

"Kon!" Wonder Woman and Batman cried out in horror. In her horror, Wonder Woman had lost her focus on Ravager, who slipped out of the lasso and slashed the Amazon's throat with her sword.

"Wonder Woman!" Batman yelled.

The Flash sped toward Ravager and assaulted her with a veritable wall of punches delivered at super-speed. She managed to block many of those punches and the ones she took she showed no sign of being slowed down or seriously injured by. The Flash was so bent on making Ravager pay for what she'd done to his two friends that he didn't notice her pulling a pistol on him . . . until he heard the shot go off. He vibrated to evade the bullet, which turned out to be a serious mistake, as the bullet was a vibrating one. The end result was that he was having epileptic seizures at super-speed.

Static fired off a series of electrostatic bursts at Ravager, who dodged them as she rushed closer to the electrokinetic. A series of Batarangs flew at her from behind, but she was evading them with inhuman speed. She flipped backwards and landed on Batman, sitting on his shoulders with her legs wrapped around his throat. He set off a two-hundred-thousand-volt taser in his suit, throwing her off him. She quickly rose to her feet and crouched into a fighting pose.

"I'm ready to go if you are, but you might want to remember your poor Kryptonian friend," Ravager advised.

"She's right," Static said. "Kon's dying from that K-rad blade in him and if we don't get it out of him, he's finished."

Batman hissed angrily. "We're not through yet, Ravager. I'll be back for you." Before he could elaborate on that threat, assuming he wanted to, everything suddenly went dark. "What the –?"

"Oh, no," Static uttered. "We have to get out of here. Bright's absorbing all the light in the area!"

He and Batman gathered the rest of the Justice League into the jet, including a protesting Wonder Woman. As soon as they were inside, Batman ordered the jet to take off. However, it hadn't even gotten a foot off the ground when there was a sudden flash of bright light. When it was gone, so were Bright and Ravager, and the jet was taking off.

As the jet flew on autopilot, Batman turned his attentions to Superman. He pressed a button on the K-blade embedded in the Man of Steel's stomach and the blade retracted into the hilt. "You're going to be ok, Kon," he whispered. "You're going to be ok."

A little blood had escaped from Superman's wound before it closed. "Thanks," Superman answered. "I had no idea Ravager was that tough."

Wonder Woman, whose neck wound had healed, went to Superman and pulled him up. The Amazon moved over to the other felled members of the Justice League. The Flash was still in super-speed seizures, so she grabbed him and forced him still long enough to pull the vibrating bullet out. Green Lantern and Scarlet Archer awakened and both went to him.

"Are you all right?" Green Lantern asked.

"I'll be ok," the Flash replied. "Ravager came prepared for us, didn't she?"

"But what interest would she have in Bright?" Static asked.

"We'll have to figure that out later," Batman replied. "The more pressing issue is that someone like Ravager came to Bright's rescue. Something stinks here and I'm going to find out what it is." He paused before going on. "And we have to do better. We've been at this for almost two decades and we get defeated like rank amateurs."

"We underestimated her, that was the problem," Wonder Woman admitted. "We assumed that because she was an enemy primarily of the Titans, we didn't need to take her so seriously." She snickered bitterly. "Fifteen years ago, we'd have been very pissed off if our mentors decided the foes we faced as Titans weren't anything to worry about. What does that say about how we regard the Titans we have now?"

"And she took advantage of that," Batman stated harshly. "What's done is done. What's important is that we find out what she wanted with Bright that was so important that she was willing to cut through us to get to her and put a stop to it."

* * *

"Where are we going?" Bright asked as Ravager piloted their two-person jet.

Ravager turned to Bright and replied sweetly, "It's a surprise."

Bright sat back and folded her arms beneath her bosom. "It better be a good surprise. Not that I'm ungrateful for my rescue, but I'm curious as to what you want with me."

Ravager continued to pilot the jet through the sky. It was a stealth jet, designed primarily for speed. Since it was a stealth jet, it also had anti-radar equipment that rendered it undetectable by anything conventional or unconventional authorities had. This proved especially valuable when she sighted an aerial base. The base was essentially an aerial platform with a dome-like outgrowth in the center and smaller outgrowths arranged around it. She brought the jet down through an opening in the platform and into what appeared to be a bay for aerial vehicles.

Ravager and Bright got out of the jet and exited the aerial vehicle bay. They began walking through the base, Bright following Ravager, who had taken the opportunity to replace the lens hiding her left eye. As they walked, Bright grew increasingly anxious, although she kept her face rather stoic. Finally, Ravager opened a door and stepped through it, Bright following.

Inside were four other people. One was a young redheaded woman dressed in a sharp business suit, green eyes glittering with intellect and malice. Another was a middle-aged bespectacled brown-haired man dressed in a blazer and tie. A third was a tall, imperious dark-haired man dressed in a cape-less black version of Captain Marvel's costume. The fourth was a man in black with gray armor and chain mail-like mesh whose face was fully concealed by a bisected black-and-burnt orange mask similar to Ravager's but with the colors flipped. These four were Lena Luthor, the Calculator, Black Adam, and Deathstroke.

"Good work, Ravager," Deathstroke spoke.

"Thank you, Father," Ravager answered.

"You must be wondering what we want with you, Bright," Lena said. "It's very simple what we want. We want you to join us. We want you to become part of the Society."

"Society of what?" Bright asked sarcastically.

"A society of people who want to prove to the world that the so-called heroes who oppose us aren't the saints they'd have humanity think they are," the Calculator replied. "Do note that if it hadn't been for my information, Ravager wouldn't have been able to rescue you and the League would have had you imprisoned in Alcatraz. Again."

"Yeah," Bright grumbled. "So why do you need me?"

"For what you bring to the table," Lena replied, "which is raw power. Raw power and an intellect to go along with it, an intellect you obviously didn't inherit from your late father. Plus, your hatred, your hatred for the heroes that made a fool of him, a hatred that can be very useful when directed at the children of those heroes."

"And what do I get out of this?" Bright questioned.

"Vengeance," Slade responded. "You get to teach those worthless brats a lesson about how costly their arrogance will be."

"And what is our ultimate plan?" Bright asked.

"You ask a lot of questions," Lena observed with a hint of irritability. "However, that's a good thing; anybody with a functioning brain should know that sometimes it's the better part of valor to look a gift horse in the mouth. Our ultimate plan is relatively simple; the difference between 'superheroes' and 'super-villains' is a matter of perspective. We intend to invert the perspectives of the public, to make those who have made our lives a hell see what it's like to be regarded as no better than we are."

"And how are we going to do that?" Bright asked. "Not that it isn't a rather ingenious plan, but I'd like details."

Lena smiled. "Inquisitive woman, aren't you? I trust you, as you see our plan unfold, you'll have very few complaints."

* * *

In Jump City, Mercury was battling the Hell's Blitzkriegs. Despite his doppelganger's attempts at dismantling the Velocity 11-manufacturing ring, the ring had resurfaced with the even more potent Velocity 12. The Hell's Blitzkriegs had seized the opportunity and were now even faster than before, but not by much. Still, their numbers, combined with their speed, made them a challenge for the platinum-haired speedster.

It had started when he spotted something moving faster than any normal human could, knocking over a woman and taking her purse. He'd quickly taken off after it, shifting into his costume as he did so. As he'd gotten closer, he'd realized it'd been a Hell's Blitzkrieg and he was ready to apprehend the speed thief when he'd been blitzed by several other Blitzkriegs.

"You're going to pay for what you did to us, you freak," one of them had said to him. Mercury didn't bother explaining that it'd been another version of him that had so brutalized them; the explanation would be lost on them. Instead, he'd opted to begin kicking ass and kick ass he did.

At the present moment, Mercury ran up the wall of a building and turned in mid-run, launching himself off the wall and into a kick that caught a Blitzkrieg in the jaw. Several more Blitzkriegs attempted to gang up on him from all sides, only for him to fight them off as well. He socked one in the jaw and turned to kick another one before moving to a third and kneeing him in the stomach. The fourth was caught in the nose by Mercury's elbow and the fifth was ready to keep fighting when a silver blur suddenly began defeating the Blitzkriegs with ease.

Mercury narrowed his eyes in irritation. "I had them!" he protested.

"Sure you did, Mercury," a voice answered with friendly mocking. The blur stopped to reveal a strawberry blond teenage boy dressed in a skintight silver suit with a golden lightning-like stripe over the left shoulder and extending to the right side. The right sleeve and side of his torso were colored dark blue, as were the left side of his torso and the outsides of his legs. On his legs, the blue took on a lightning-like design. His face was boyishly handsome, his eyes concealed only by a pair of silvery goggle-glasses with lightning-styled stems.

"Hermes," Mercury groaned. "You mind not jumping in when I have a situation handled?"

"I don't get what your problem is," Hermes said. "I'm only trying to help."

"Maybe if your team wasn't badmouthing mine so much, we might get along better," Mercury retorted sarcastically.

"They're just calling it like they see it," Hermes commented. "You guys do tend to keep your distance from the civilian population."

"And how do you figure we do that?" Mercury questioned. "Our identities are known to the public and we go to school with normal humans. That doesn't make what you say we do easy."

"It's possible to surround yourself with people and never have genuine contact with them," Hermes replied calmly. "But I think the problem is that you just don't understand normal people. I've done my research on you new Titans; you were born with your powers and even if you didn't manifest them at birth, most of you had at least one parent who was in the hero life. You never had a chance to be normal, to see things through our eyes."

"You're not so normal yourself," Mercury rejoined.

"I was, once," Hermes said. "My powers were a freak accident, but I spent most of my life a normal human, so I can understand them a hell of a lot better than you can."

Mercury didn't have an answer for him. Instead, he said, "I've got better ways to waste my time than debate with you. See ya." He sped away, leaving Hermes to shake his head bemusedly.

* * *

The platinum speedster returned to Titans Tower with a scowl on his face, something Beast Girl noticed. "You only look like that when you run into Hermes," she commented. "Was that what happened?"

"Sanctimonious prick," Mercury spat. "He's only been at this for what, a month? And he and those Infinity, Inc. kids think they know how to fight crime better than we do."

"They're just doing it for notoriety's sake," Samara said. "A lot of the younger new heroes try to 'prove' themselves by clashing with the more established heroes. It's not a big deal, not in and of itself . . ."

"But what?" Inferno prodded softly.

"There's something about this Infinity, Inc., something I don't like," Samara went on. "There's just . . . something foul about them."

"Think it has something to do with Lena Luthor actually supporting their right to fight crime?" Bladefire asked. "That's enough to make me suspicious; Lena hates metas about as much as her father did. The fact that she'd support Infinity, Inc. and even give them that name herself makes me think something's up with them."

"You know who's got to be pissed off about that name?" Mercury asked. "The original Infinity, Inc., what's left of them, anyway."

Nightstar removed her interface headset and joined her fellow Titans. "I've been monitoring the news and it doesn't sound good for us," she said.

"What do you mean?" Beast Girl asked.

"They were debating new legislation that would allow the government to basically outlaw metahuman vigilantism," Nightstar replied. "For any metahumans not affiliated with the government."

"To hell with that," Mercury spat. "How are we supposed to fight crime if we have to wait for them to tell us what crimes we're supposed to be fighting?"

"It makes sense if you look at it from a normal person's point of view," Nightstar said. "Over the past fifteen or twenty years, people have started to think that we might be just as bad as the people we fight in our own way."

"How the hell are they going to think that?" Beast Girl asked. "We protect people!"

"Nova Blue was partly created to fight _us,_" Bladefire replied. "And I hope you haven't forgotten what happened when Peter was in the Speed Force."

Nobody was going to forget so easily what happened when Mercury was in the Speed Force. During that time, his place in this dimension had been supplanted by a psychotic doppelganger from a darker universe, a universe where Beast Girl had been killed and a vengeful Mercury had become a superhuman killer of criminals. The darker Mercury had continued his activities in this dimension, only to be stopped by this dimension's Mercury when he returned from the Speed Force. A lot of damage control had followed, with the Titans emphatically explaining to the public that the killer Mercury was by no means the same Mercury that had been fighting alongside them since they'd come together. Of course, some people – even if they were convinced that there really had been two Mercuries – took this incident as a point in favor of their belief that metahuman heroes were dangerous.

"Right now, it's just tension," Nightstar said. "Nobody's made a definite decision either way, but it'll take only one incident – just one – to convince the American people that we can't be trusted. Once that happens, the government will pass that piece of legislation and we'll have to make some pretty hard decisions."

"Do you think some heroes will be in favor of this legislation?" Inferno asked.

"What makes you ask that?" Mercury asked.

"Not everyone has our resources," Inferno answered. "Not everyone has a headquarters equipped with the finest technology known to man and augmented with extraterrestrial tech. Not everyone has our connections. Those people would be quite tempted by what government affiliations could offer."

"We've been fine without the help or interference of the government for decades," Samara stated. "This is more about controlling us than about protecting the public."

"You may be right, but we don't have to worry about it just yet, do we?" Beast Girl asked.

* * *

In the Society's hovering headquarters, invisible to radar and high enough in the air to evade the sight of people on the ground, Slade and Ravager walked down the halls. The mastermind and his daughter said nothing to each other as they walked. Both had their minds only on their destination. Slade anticipated what he was going to show his daughter, apprentice, and partner with a dark smile underneath his mask. Ravager curiously wondered what her father, teacher, and partner had to show her.

Finally, they came before a door and Slade opened it. He stepped in first and Ravager followed, Slade moving aside to let her pass. Once she stepped in, she noticed some very familiar people looking at her and two she didn't quite recognize. The three were a pink-haired girl, a dark-haired young woman, and a dark-haired young man. The other two were a woman dressed in a red-highlighted black version of the Flash costume and a white-haired teenage boy dressed in skintight black with a wire-slash-circuit pattern on his costume.

"You," the pink-haired girl hissed. She wore a black-and-purple corset with a black leather sleeve large enough to partly obscure her right hand and a mesh sleeve on the left arm with a black leather bracer. Her pants were leather as well and laced up at the sides, a half-cape extending from her waistline. She wore a leather collar that covered almost her entire neck and styled her hair in the same messy twin pom-poms style for which she'd been known back in the H.I.V.E. Academy.

"Hex," Ravager sneered. "Still bitter?"

A look from Slade silenced Hex and cowed the other four into not saying anything against Ravager. "Ravager, I'd like you to meet the new Tartarus. Hex, Gemini, and Dr. Blaze you already know. The Black Flash and Fray have yet to make your acquaintance, but you'll get to know them. You'll have to, since you'll be leading them."

"Leading them?" Ravager echoed. "For what?"

"Against the Titans," Slade replied. "I put you all together because you can counter the Titans. Ravager, you can match Nightstar in physical combat. Hex, you're a sorceress like Samara and you have an edge that she does not: your speed bursts. Gemini, you're a polymorph, whereas Beast Girl can only take animal and animal-like shapes. Dr. Blaze, you and Inferno are perfect enemies. Black Flash, your time control makes you faster than even a speedster on the order of the Flash, so Mercury shouldn't be a problem for you. Fray, Bladefire will be dealt with by you."

Gemini stretched her fingers into deadly blades. "I'll enjoy cutting the little green bitch to pieces . . . and mailing each one to her bastard father."

Fray shook his head in silent derision, derision that didn't remain silent when he said, "Obsession isn't healthy."

Gemini glared at the white-haired boy. "Screw you."

"I know you want to," Fray taunted.

"Enough," Slade declared, locking his one-eyed glare on the bickering duo. "Such childishness is unbecoming of you. Your frustrations are better directed at your foes than at each other. Now . . . it's time to plan our first move."

* * *

End Notes: Well, there's the setup for this arc. It's going to be a pretty wide-spanning arc and there'll be a lot of turmoil for the Teen Titans and the Justice League, what with the machinations of both the Society and the government. Yes, there will be government machinations in this arc and those machinations will intertwine with the Society's machinations. No, they're not going to be working together; one will provoke the other, but they will not have a direct connection.

To identify the Leaguers that appear in this future, the Batman here you already know as Tim Drake from his previous cameos in Future Storm. Superman here is Kon-El, a.k.a. Conner Kent, a.k.a. the modern Superboy of Teen Titans and the earlier Young Justice. Wonder Woman I already identified as Cassie Sandsmark, a.k.a. Wonder Girl in Young Justice and Teen Titans. The Flash here is Bart Allen, who is currently filling that role in the new Flash comics but was better known as Impulse and the second Kid Flash from Young Justice and Teen Titans, and whom you should already remember from his previous appearances in Future Storm. Scarlet Archer is Mia Dearden, a.k.a. the new Speedy in the Green Arrow comics and briefly in Teen Titans. Static here is borrowed from Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's animated DCU, the future of which sees him as a member of the Justice League. The Green Lantern here is an original character.

Black Adam, for those of you who don't know who he is, is essentially the evil/anti-heroic version of Captain Marvel: same powers, darker attitude. The Calculator is basically an evil Oracle. You should have some memory of Lena Luthor from her previous appearance in "Gehenna" and I don't even need to tell you who Slade is.

There, enough of my explanations. Time for you guys to let me know what you think of this beginning chapter of my final arc for this series.


	42. Justice: Vermillion

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 2: "Vermillion"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. The characters of Nightstar, Mercury, Ravager, Slade, and several others do not belong to me, either. Everyone and everything else is mine, though.

Author's note: I was worried that people were starting to lose interest in this story, but I've gotten a few good reviews that have told me otherwise. Feedback is good because it makes the fanfic writer believe that his or her work is worth a damn. In many cases, even criticism – as long as it's constructive – is good because the critic just might believe that your work is worth enough of a damn that he or she wants to make it better. Thanks, my reviewers, for helping me to keep the faith.

Anyway, a small warning: There is death here. There is a death at the end. It is not a nice death. It is not a pleasant death. It is a death that will test the spirits of the Titans. And now, enough of the foreboding talk and time for you to see what leads to this death.

* * *

The next day during lunch at school, the Titans were sitting by themselves. The cafeteria around them was abuzz with conversation, although Nightstar's and Bladefire's ears were sharp enough to distinguish at least sixty percent of what their fellow students were saying. The conversations taking place concerned the newest teen hero team to arrive in the spotlight, Infinity, Inc.

"Who do you think's cuter, Solarflare or Hermes?"

"Hermes! Runners rule!"

"Who do you think would win in a fight between Nightstar and Nightside?"

"Dunno. Do I have to choose?"

"Let's look at the stats here. Nightstar has super-strength, can fly, has that sweet whip, and the optic blasts. Nightside has super-strength, too, and she's really fast. Plus, they're both skilled in martial arts."

"If you say it like that, then it sounds like they're about even."

"Ok, let's put it in terms we can both comprehend. Who's cuter?"

"I don't know. I'd have to say Nightstar, if only because I can't see behind that mask Nightside wears."

"Copout, suckface. Copout."

"Our fangirls have finally stopped bothering us," Mercury said. "I'm almost grateful to Infinity, Inc."

"Well, fangirls are very fickle," Inferno remarked. "I'm just wondering where they came from."

"They've been rather forthcoming about that," Bladefire answered. "In the cases of all but Nightside, it was a dormant meta-gene that activated one day. In Nightside's case, it was radical neurosurgery to save her life from a disease attacking her nervous system. That's where her strength and speed come from; it's neuromuscular enhancement."

"Hasn't anybody noticed that pretty much everyone on Infinity, Inc. has the same basic abilities and motif as a member of the Justice League?" Beast Girl asked.

"Now that I think about it, yeah," Mercury replied. "Solarflare and Ultraviolet are like Superman and Wonder Woman, only instead of heat vision, Solarflare can disassemble anything he looks at and Ultraviolet's lasso is created from ultraviolet radiation. Nightside's a lot like Batman, only female. Hermes is a speedster, Garnet can do the same things with plasma energy that a Green Lantern can do with their power ring, and Aquamarine is a hydrokinetic. Interesting coincidences."

"It's not like there's a copyright on powers," Nightstar mused.

"The doctors who patched up Nightside were medical scientists working for Lena Luthor," Bladefire mentioned.

"And that patch-up turned Nightside into a meta," Nightstar said, "a meta who joined Infinity, Inc., the same team that has the distinction of being the only metahuman crime-fighting team Lena supports. This is starting to stink more and more."

"We'll have to worry about that later," Inferno answered, looking at the clock. "Lunch period's over. We gotta go to class."

* * *

That day, the assorted members of Infinity, Inc. were hanging out in the obelisk-shaped headquarters provided for them by Lena Luthor. The six had been ordinary teenagers once upon a time, until things had changed for them. Lena Luthor had been the one to make that change and they were all grateful to her for it. They had a new lease on life and superhuman powers to go along with it.

"You ran into Mercury, didn't you?" Solarflare asked Hermes. The leader of the team, he was a tall, athletic boy with dusty brown hair and clear blue eyes. His outfit was a dark red full-body suit with an ornately designed golden S-symbol on the chest.

"Yeah, so?" Hermes asked, his goggle-glasses removed to reveal green eyes. "That poser ran away from me."

"You know the fun part about all this?" Ultraviolet asked, a twinkle in her violet eyes. "Being loved by so many people. Never thought that would happen to me."

"I love you," Nightside whispered softly.

"I don't want you to love me," Ultraviolet answered harshly. "I'm not attracted to you, ok? Get that through your head before I push it through for you."

Ultraviolet and Nightside were about as different as day and night. Ultraviolet was silver-haired and garbed in violet and silver, her outfit consisting of a body-hugging suit colored violet with long gloves and tall boots colored silver. A silver sash wrapped around her torso diagonally and silver star-shaped earrings dangled from her ears. Nightside was dark-haired and dressed in a black one-piece that covered her torso from neck to pelvis. Long black gloves covered her hands and arms and tall black boots covered her feet and most of her legs, leaving barely any skin exposed. The lower half of her face was concealed by a black mask, leaving dark eyes – and the hurt in them – exposed.

"Ultra, chill out," Garnet said. She was a girl with bright red hair, red eyes, and dressed in a figure-hugging black suit with red shoulder guards, red elbow guards, red wrist guards, and red knee guards. At the moment, she was shaping her plasma energy into random chess pieces, like knights, rooks, bishops, kings, and queens.

"Why should I?" Ultraviolet asked. "I've made it clear that I'm not interested and she keeps mooning after me like some lovesick psycho!"

"Doesn't mean you have to be a bitch about it," a woman's voice cut in. The assorted Infinity, Inc. members turned around to look at their visitor. It was the PR agent hired for them by Lena Luthor, Ms. Catherine Rook. Her brown hair was in its usual neat bun and she was garbed in a crisp navy pantsuit. "Where's Aquamarine?"

"Still in the pool," Hermes replied. "Want me to get her?" Before Ms. Rook could answer, he had already sped away to retrieve the aquatic girl. Within a few minutes, he had returned with Aquamarine, a girl with blue hair and violet eyes. She wore what looked like a silver-and-blue short-sleeved wetsuit.

"What is it, Ms. Rook?" Aquamarine asked, her voice wispy.

"You kids have a public appearance to make," Ms. Rook replied.

"Where?" Solarflare inquired.

"The local youth center," Ms. Rook answered. "It's been renamed the Infinity Youth Center, in your honor."

"Gee, I wonder how much Ms. Luthor paid them to do that," Ultraviolet commented with biting sarcasm in her voice.

"Does it matter?" Ms. Rook asked. "As long as you're able to do your job and have the full support of the public behind you, no. In fact, this whole operation depends on you maintaining a good public front." She glared at Solarflare and Hermes. "You know what that means, you two."

"Yeah," Solarflare droned in bored tones. "No fun."

"Your concept of fun would disgust those same parents who want their kids to grow up to be like you," Ms. Rook retorted. "Your appearance at the youth center is in 30 minutes. You should be able to make it."

* * *

In Titans Tower, the Titans had finished their homework. Mercury had been the first to finish, accelerating his mind to complete his assignments in the space of half an hour. Nightstar and Bladefire had been next, followed by Inferno and later Beast Girl. Samara's face was buried in her medical cyber-text, mainly by choice; she wasn't as eager as some of her fellow Titans to be through with her work. In the background, she heard Nightstar watching the 5 o'clock news, which was displaying Infinity, Inc. at the youth center that had been recently renamed in their honor.

"What do you think would happen if the Watchmen Act was passed?" a reporter asked the Infinitors.

"If it happened, we wouldn't mind," Solarflare replied. "The superheroes out there have their hearts in the right place, no doubt about that, but what they don't get is that they can't just run around playing cops and robbers. Besides, right now, who do they answer to if something goes wrong and somebody gets hurt or killed while they're doing their thing? With the Watchmen Act, we'd all have to be more careful and there'd even be a screening process so not just anybody with powers or combat skills can just throw on a costume and start beating people up."

"How do you know there'd be a screening process?" another reporter asked.

"We talked to a senator about it," Solarflare answered. "And a screening process would be an excellent idea, in light of the fact that some people calling themselves superheroes are just maladjusted vigilantes. Can't have people like that responsible for protecting innocent people."

Nightstar shut off the television. "Self-righteous, smug little –"

"'Who watches the watchmen?'" Bladefire quoted darkly.

Nightstar stood up from her seat. "Come on, guys," she said. "It's time for combat training."

* * *

The Titans went to the combat simulation room, which was nothing but four bare gray walls. Nightstar had paused in the monitor area to activate a combat routine. She joined her fellow Titans in the combat area to wait for the routine to fully activate. Once it did, it shifted into an arena identical to the interior of Alcatraz Prison. The cells were open, allowing the inmates to attempt to escape.

"The prison break simulation, huh?" Samara commented.

"Go," Nightstar ordered, flying into the swarm of escaping meta-criminals. Fists and feet slammed forcefully into the torsos of those attempting to escape. She extended her energy lariat and ensnared several would-be escapees. Beside her, Bladefire was forcibly returning the meta-criminals to their cells. Mercury sped through the false prison, dashing the holographic criminals' hopes of escaping so quickly it was almost as though they'd never had the opportunity in the first place. Beast Girl charged through the prison as a gorilla, putting her animal strength and agility to good use in returning the escaping inmates to their cells. Inferno and Samara tag-teamed against a score of inmates, combining their powers to neutralize them.

The real trouble came when the more powerful inmates began to rear their heads, such as Effigy. The pyrokinetic launched an assault of fiery constructs, sending them after the Titans. Inferno cut through the constructs with a hard-flame saber, absorbing the fallen remains. Effigy continued to send constructs after the Titans, but Nightstar and Bladefire sliced through them with her energy whip and his energy sword, respectively.

Samara decided to fight fire with fire and created constructs out of her shadow energy. These constructs resembled knights out of some madman's dark fantasy, but since they were made by Samara, maybe they were from her dark fantasies. Beside her, Inferno morphed his flames into gladiators and sent them into battle along with Samara's dark knights. Effigy's constructs did battle with theirs and in the end, their constructs won.

Finally, the Titans were able to contain all the would-be escapees and the simulation ended. Inferno powered down from his fiery state and Samara lowered her hood. The team panted from exertion, their uniforms clinging to them even more tightly than usual from sweat.

"That was good work," Nightstar said.

"Thanks," Mercury answered. He looked at the sweaty Beast Girl with a glint in his eye and whispered in her ear, "You're very sexy when you're sweating, you know that? I think it's your scent."

At that moment, the klaxon rang through the Tower, signaling that the mainframe had picked up a crime in progress. "Save it for later, guys," Bladefire said.

The Titans went to the mainframe screen and Bladefire slipped on the interface headset, scanning for the detected crime that had set off the alarm. When he found it, he pulled off the headset and looked at his team. "It's a break-in at the tech sector," he told them.

"Let's go," Nightstar said.

* * *

When the Titans arrived at the coordinates, they found six people waiting for them in the tech warehouse. Five were chillingly familiar; the sixth was a new face. The first was a woman dressed in a combination of black leather and gray chain mail-style mesh with twin swords at the ready and a bisected black-and-burnt orange mask concealing her face. The second was a pink-haired girl in a black corset and leather pants. The third was a dark-haired woman in a similar outfit to that of the pink-haired girl but with the addition of a mesh shirt underneath the corset. The fourth was a young man in a lab coat over black clothes with flame prints on them. The fifth was a woman dressed in a black-and-red version of the Flash's costume. The sixth was a white-haired teenage boy dressed in a black costume with wire designs woven through it.

Mercury let out a gasp of horror when he saw the woman in the black Flash costume. "You . . . you're supposed to be dead!" he exclaimed.

"You'renotthatfortunate," the Black Flash answered cruelly, her words rolling together.

"How did you survive?" Mercury asked.

"Thaaank Warrrp," Black Flash replied, her words stretching this time. Her words were clearer when she next spoke. "He pinpointed the moment in time that I was lost and pulled me back here. Now it's time for you to suffer."

"Ravager!" Nightstar yelled. "What's the meaning of this?"

The masked assassin merely crossed her katana blades. "The meaning? We're Tartarus, that's the meaning . . . and the time for talk is past. Now it's time to fight."

"Come with it, then!" Nightstar declared. "Titans Together!"

The two teams charged each other. Nightstar lashed out with her energy whip, but Ravager dodged and slashed at her with one of her swords. Nightstar flew into the air to evade and flipped into a vicious kick that sliced Ravager's cheek. The wound quickly sealed itself and Ravager retaliated with a vicious spinning slash of her swords. Nightstar evaded again and sliced at Ravager with her energy whip, only for Ravager to jump over the whip and kick Nightstar in the face.

Gemini extended her fingers into sharp blades and sliced at Beast Girl with them. Beast Girl evaded the swings and morphed into her cat-girl form, jumping over Gemini and kicking her in the face. Gemini quickly recovered from the kick and stretched her finger-blades at Beast Girl, who ducked under them. Beast Girl became a mouse and ran at Gemini, morphing into a tigress when she was right in front of her and tackling her.

"Big mistake," Gemini sneered and melted into a black liquid, re-forming behind Beast Girl and literally wrapping herself around her. Beast Girl generated an aura of molten earth, tearing herself free of Gemini, who simply retaliated by stretching her fists at Beast Girl like deadly slingshots. Beast Girl sprouted wings and talons and flew out of the way of Gemini's assault.

Hex fired waves of twisted probability at Samara, who blocked with her telekinetic fields. Unfortunately, Hex's probability-altering abilities caused Samara's telekinetic fields to disintegrate. Hex slammed her hand onto the ground and sent another wave of altered probability through it, causing the ground beneath Samara to melt into a quicksand-like substance. Samara telekinetically wrenched herself free and extended shadowy claws at Hex.

The lab-coated Dr. Blaze generated fiery knives and threw them at Inferno, who dodged and retaliated with his own fiery knives. Dr. Blaze shaped his flames into miniature devils that rushed at Inferno, clinging to him and exploding. The detonations sent Inferno flying back into a set of wooden crates, which splintered upon his landing. The pyromancer pulled himself up to his feet and charged at Dr. Blaze, shooting fireballs at the fire-wielding maniac. The aforementioned fire-wielding maniac simply caught the fireballs and absorbed them.

Mercury was having a hell of a time trying to keep up with Black Flash, who was operating in a faster timeframe than Mercury. Even though the platinum boy had super-speed on his side, Black Flash's existence in a faster timeframe made him look slow compared to her. He threw a punch at her, only for her to be out of the way before the punch could even have a chance to land. A brutal chop to the back of his neck from her nearly broke his vertebra. He attempted to retaliate, but she was on him with a barrage of hundreds of brutal punches in the space of a second. She grabbed him by the throat and spun around, throwing him into a set of crates.

The speedster got up and rushed Black Flash, only for her to sidestep his charge and trip him. He rose to his feet again and attacked with a series of hyper-speed punches and kicks. Black Flash blocked each and every one of them with a mocking ease. To her, he might as well have been moving through molasses.

Meanwhile, Bladefire was fighting the mysterious white-haired boy, or trying to. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't easy fighting someone who couldn't be touched. Every blow he attempted to make was casually blocked by some kind of morphing force field. No matter where he struck, the field effortlessly blocked his strikes.

_Kinetic energy deflection,_ he concluded. _This is going to be difficult._

The red-haired Tamaranean hybrid materialized his energy sword and slashed at the boy's force field, but the field morphed around the boy and shifted into a blade of his own. The boy smirked and slashed at Bladefire, who blocked the boy's sword with his. The two pushed against one another, trying to gain leverage over the other. Finally, the boy flipped away from Bladefire and onto a crate.

"What's your name?" Bladefire asked.

"Are you going to ask me on a date?" the boy asked flirtatiously.

Bladefire just arched an irritated eyebrow at him. "No, just curious. Besides, I like to know whose ass I'm kicking."

"I'm called Fray," the boy answered, flipping off the crate and slashing at Bladefire, who blocked with his energy sword. Fray kicked Bladefire's legs out from under him, or would have if Bladefire hadn't flown upward at the last second. The red-haired Titan came back down with a hard kick, but Fray's kinetic sword reshaped itself into the familiar force field and blocked the kick.

Ravager slashed at Nightstar with one of her swords, only for Nightstar to move out of the way of the slash. Unfortunately for Nightstar, Ravager had wanted her to evade that sword, for it led her right into another sword. Nightstar had figured that out in time to avoid being impaled, but Ravager's other sword managed to nick her in the arm.

"What's going on here, Ravager?" Nightstar asked. "What do you want this time?"

"Silly Nightstar," Ravager replied. "Wanting to know the resolution before the story's finished."

Nightstar snarled and lashed out at Ravager with her energy whip. Ravager merely allowed the energy whip to wrap around her arm and used it to tug Nightstar toward her. Nightstar turned her unwilling flight into a flying kick, but Ravager blocked that and whirled her into a throw that sent her crashing into a crate. Nightstar rose to her feet and literally flew at Ravager, who lunged at her and caught her in mid-flight. The two female fighters landed on the ground, grappling viciously with each other. Nightstar wedged a knee between herself and Ravager and used it to push Ravager off her. Ravager landed on her hands and flipped onto her feet, while Nightstar flipped onto her feet as well.

Suddenly, the fight was interrupted by an energy blast piercing the wall of the warehouse in which they were fighting. Inside floated 12 robotic-seeming creatures, all of them colored bright blue with a liquid-like surface. They were all marked with a glowing eye on their heads and chests and a Mohawk-like protrusion on their heads. The robots looked at the Titans and Tartarus, assessing them with cold eyes.

"_Number of metahumans: 12,_" one of them uttered in a mechanical voice. "_Assessing abilities and threat level._"

Their eyes locked upon Nightstar first. "_Assessing. Name: Mar'i Grayson. Alias: Nightstar. Known metahuman abilities: Absorption of ultraviolet radiation grants superhuman strength, flight, and limited energy-shaping powers; possesses acute senses and high level of combat skills. Note: Tamaraneans normally possess energy projection as opposed to energy shaping, but Grayson's status as a hybrid makes the existence of an altered power set a possibility. Threat level: Beta._"

Their eyes locked upon Bladefire next. "_Assessing. Name: Joh'n Grayson. Alias: Bladefire. Known metahuman abilities: Absorption of ultraviolet radiation grants superhuman strength, flight, and limited energy-shaping powers; possesses acute senses and high level of combat skills. Note: Tamaraneans normally possess energy projection as opposed to energy shaping, but Grayson's status as a hybrid makes the existence of an altered power set a possibility. Threat level: Beta._"

Then they turned to Mercury. "_Assessing. Name: Peter Maxwell Allen. Alias: Mercury. Known metahuman abilities: Superhuman speed, possibly approaching or equaling that of light, and reaction time; kinetic energy manipulation and redirection, molecular manipulation; accelerated thinking; accelerated healing; lightning-like energy discharge. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

Their attention fell upon Beast Girl. "_Assessing. Name: Theresa Logan. Alias: Beast Girl. Known metahuman abilities: Animal-based shape-shifting; earth manipulation. Threat level: Beta._"

Their attention moved to Inferno. "_Assessing. Name: Jeremiah Crockett. Alias: Inferno. Known metahuman abilities: Fire manipulation. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

Their eyes landed on Samara. "_Assessing. Name: Samara Arella Roth-Wilson. Known metahuman abilities: Psionic shadow manipulation, used in remote manipulation of objects, concussive blasts, constructs, and teleportation; projection into and control of other bodies; emotion sensing, manipulation, and draining; healing. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

The mysterious humanoid machines' eyes turned to Tartarus, beginning with Ravager. "_Assessing. Name: Rose Wilson Worth. Alias: Ravager. Known metahuman abilities: Chemical and nanotech augmentations granting superhuman strength, speed, agility, stamina, reaction time, mental processing ability, and regeneration; short-range precognition; highly skilled combatant. Threat level: Beta._"

"What the hell are you?" Dr. Blaze asked in irritation.

The machines simply ignored the pyrokinetic and turned to Fray. "_Assessing. Name: Thomas Frakes. Alias: Fray. Known metahuman abilities: Kinetic energy deflection in the form of a metamorphic energy field surrounding its user and capable of taking the form of weapons; skilled combatant. Threat level: Beta._"

Their attentions turned to Black Flash. "_Assessing. Name: Alison Zolomon. Alias: Black Flash. Known metahuman abilities: Ability to realign herself into a faster timeframe, simulating superhuman speed. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

The robots locked their sights on Gemini. "_Assessing. Name: Laurel De Mille. Alias: Gemini. Known metahuman abilities: Polymorphism. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

The blue machines focused their attentions on Dr. Blaze. _"Assessing. Name: Mario Blaze. Known metahuman abilities: Fire manipulation. Threat level: Beta-Plus._"

Finally, they gazed upon Hex. "_Assessing. Name: Kali. Alias: Hex. Known metahuman abilities: Probability manipulation; entropy projection; intermittent superhuman speed. Threat level: Beta._"

"Who the hell are you?" Hex asked.

"_We are OMAC – Observational Metahuman Activity Construct,_" the blue machines replied. "_All detected metahumans are to be terminated._"

"Terminate this, robotard!" Mercury yelled, running to attack the OMACs. One of them crouched and planted its hand on the ground, a blue aura emanating from its hand. The ground turned into a glossy surface and Mercury slipped and crashed.

"One of the few reliable ways of stopping a speedster," Ravager mused before attacking the OMACs with her katana blades. Unfortunately for her, the OMACs retaliated by materializing blades of their own and attacking her with them. They surrounded her in a circle, coming at her from all sides. She fought like a demon, moving with superhuman agility and speed to evade their slashes and retaliate with her own.

"Ravager!" Bladefire yelled and leaped into the fray, slashing at the OMACs with his energy sword. The OMACs turned around and began to fight him and Ravager. Some broke off to attack the other Titans and Tartarus members. Gemini morphed her hands into claws and swiped viciously at the blue machines, which retaliated with blasts of flame, causing her to literally shrink away. When she tried to escape, she was blocked by another OMAC, which emitted jets of painful heat. The polymorph tried to flee, only to be blasted with cold this time and frozen.

Surprisingly, Beast Girl leaped to Gemini's defense, striking the OMACs with molten earth energy to prevent them from killing her. The OMACs returned fire with energy blasts, which the geokinetic shape-shifter dodged with animal reflexes and agility. Nightstar sliced at the OMACs with her energy wire, but the OMACs proved highly resistant to being cut by the wire. Inferno and Dr. Blaze shot jets of fire at the OMACs, which retaliated with jets of water to put out their flames. Inferno simply powered up again, using the intense heat he was giving off to evaporate the water drenching him.

"We can't fight in here!" Samara exclaimed.

"She's right," Nightstar said, flying out of the tech warehouse. The other Titans and Tartarus followed them, along with the OMACs. Now that the fight was out in the streets, they had greater freedom of motion, but they had to be more careful for the innocents that might be passing through.

Hex tried to collapse the street beneath the OMACs, but the OMACs simply hovered above the street, making her tactic useless. The OMACs retaliated by emitting a pulse that left her retching. She wasn't the only one affected by the pulse, though; Samara and Fray were throwing up as well.

"What's going on?" Black Flash asked.

"It's a pulse emitted on a frequency that'll clash with the frequencies used in psionic powers," Ravager replied, just before retching as well. "As you can tell –" she paused to vomit again "– it causes nasty things to happen in the bodies of people with those powers." She threw up one more time.

Black Flash snarled under her mask and charged the OMACs, one of which crouched and planted its hand on the street, turning it into a glossy surface. Unfortunately for them, that didn't stop Black Flash, mainly because her "speed" was based in time control and not actually running on a surface. She charged at the OMACs and struck them with hundreds of blows in the space of seconds. She grabbed one of them by its arm and whirled into a throw that sent it flying very, very far away. The others attempted to attack her, only to meet similar fates.

However, more OMACs were deployed to attack them and one of their first targets was Beast Girl. They fired a gooey substance at her, which pinned her to the floor and stretched to contain her no matter what form she took. One of them closed in for the kill, only for a discharge of lightning-like blue energy to burst out of the back of its left shoulder. A split second later, Mercury could be seen with his hand over the left side of the OMAC's upper torso, bluish lightning crackling from it. Surprisingly enough, the OMAC's metallic blue shell began to melt into it, revealing . . . a human being, a man in his early thirties with brown hair. His eyes were wide with shock as his blood splattered onto Mercury's uniform.

"No . . . no . . ." Mercury uttered frantically. "It can't . . . can't . . . can't . . . no, no . . . not right, can't be . . . no . . ." He let out a horrified and anguished scream as the human being that had once seemed nothing but machine collapsed, now dead.

"_Noooooo! Nooooooo!_"

* * *

End Notes: That's where I'm going to end it. I feel it has more impact that way.

Poor Mercury. If you remember the "Quicksilver" arc, then you remember that Mercury was horrified at the vicious, vengeful vigilante his alternate-universe self had devolved into after the loss of his world's Beast Girl. In fact, he pretty much said that he'd never become a killer, no matter how much he wanted to protect Beast Girl. Irony's a bitch, isn't she?

For those of you wondering, Ultraviolet isn't a bitch to Nightside because she hates lesbians; she's just not that nice a person, period. Not many in Infinity, Inc., if any at all, are really nice people. You'll see more of that later on in this arc.

Anyway, if the developments in this chapter interested you, feel free to let me know.


	43. Justice: Creatures

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 3: "Creatures"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans and Justice League do not belong to me. They belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar, Mercury, Ravager, Slade, and most of the Justice League with the exception of Green Lantern do not belong to me, either. All except Mercury are the sole property of DC Comics, while Mercury is jointly owned by DC and Marvel.

Author's note: I really put Mercury through the ringer, didn't I? Making him kill that OMAC, which has turned out to be a human being, is certainly not good for him, either in terms of his reputation as a hero or psychologically. Now, if the OMACs are really human beings, then what happened to them to make them into cyborg metahuman-hunters? And is this part of some larger plan that we – or rather, you – have yet to decipher? We'll see.

* * *

"_Earlier this night, Jump City's tech sector was the scene of an intense battle between the Teen Titans and several meta-criminals. In the process, an innocent man became a casualty of their conflict, impaled through the chest by some kind of lightning strike. The culprit was none other than the Titans' speedster Mercury, who was apprehended by Nova Blue officers. One of the arresting officers, Marvin Jurgens, had this to say."_

The image cut to a black-haired man in his mid-thirties with a crew cut and a strong jaw. _"The kid was just staring into nothing. It was like he wasn't seeing anything at all, or if he did, he couldn't quite understand it. He didn't even put up a fight when we took him away, although Beast Girl raised a fuss, saying that we didn't know what really happened. Maybe we don't, but I'm not sure we're going to get the entire truth from those kids."_

The image reverted to the reporter._ "With this news has come increased support for a means to check metahuman vigilantism, thus leading to more Congress members coming out in favor of the Watchmen Act. The Act will come up for a vote tomorrow midday, and in light of Mercury's actions, it seems that it'll pass with a minimum of opposition. This is Maria Fitzgerald, reporting from NewsNet 2."_

Lena Luthor turned off the giant screen and smiled in evil satisfaction. "Exactly as I expected," she spoke.

"Where did those machines come from?" Slade asked. "Were they a part of the plan that you failed to inform us of?"

Lena turned to look Slade in his singular eye. "Not quite part of _my_ plan, but something I was able to manipulate for my own ends. Did you know that the Department of Extranormal Operations has been secretly gathering data on metahumans for years? They've been doing it via a spy satellite designed to monitor anyone whose genetic code deviates from that of a baseline human. The . . . OMACs are connected to that satellite."

"Won't they go after us, too?" Bright asked. "Yes, I know you and Calculator will be immune since you have no superhuman abilities, but that doesn't go for the rest of us."

"You'll have to risk it," Lena replied. "Besides, the D.E.O. wants the same thing we want, which is for these 'superheroes' to be removed from the picture."

Slade rose from his seat, his six-feet-four-inches, muscular frame towering over the five-feet-six-inches, slender frame of Lena. "Risk it, you say? My daughter could have been killed by those machines. Now, unless you want to update your definition of 'risk,' you'll make sure that the rest of us can't be touched by those things."

Lena glared at Slade. "Don't think you can intimidate me, Deathstroke," she said. "Don't think you can do that."

Black Adam rose from his seat. "I've had enough of your petty posturing," he stated in his usual imperious tones. With no more said, he walked out of the room, leaving everyone present with a slight chill to which none of them would admit.

"Why do we put up with him?" Bright asked.

"Because his power is useful to us," Lena replied. "Just like yours is. Plus, he has the resources of an entire nation behind him, which makes him even more useful. Considering that it's a nation he strongly wishes to protect . . . it keeps him from doing anything . . . unwise."

"You really are a manipulative bitch, aren't you?" Bright commented.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Lena responded with a dangerous smirk. "But don't think you can speak to me in such a manner in the future."

* * *

Elsewhere in the Society's floating fortress, Black Adam had found Ravager sitting by herself in the hall. She was the very picture of despondency, curled up as though she wished to disappear. Curiously, he looked down at her and asked, "What is the matter with you?"

Ravager looked up at him, her lips twisted into a sneer. "And why are you so concerned for my condition?"

"Who claims that I'm concerned for your condition?" Black Adam asked imperiously.

"Please," Ravager sneered. "If you weren't the slightest bit piqued, you would have just passed by."

Black Adam gritted his teeth. "You're a fierce warrior, Ravager. That is your reputation. Why are you sitting here as though you wish for Anubis to claim you? Unless . . . you don't like it here, either, do you?"

Ravager stared sharply at him. "Either? What are you doing here, Black Adam? I thought your villainous tendencies were simply the product of your descendant taking over your powers."

"My reasons for being here are the same as yours," Black Adam replied. "Duty to those I love. To my kingdom, to my people, to my wife, to my son."

"And for them, you're willing to do all this?" Ravager asked.

"Are you not willing to do the same for your father?" Black Adam questioned. "To work for him, to fight for him, to risk death so that his goals will become a reality?"

"Yes, but . . . this?" Ravager asked. "You didn't see the expressions on their faces when that OMAC turned out to be a human being. It was like . . . something broke inside them. The way something broke inside me when my mother was murdered."

"You care about them, don't you?" Black Adam mused. "At least, you care about one of them, don't you?"

* * *

A dark figure slipped into the Jump City police morgue, making her steps silently on the linoleum. She looked to her left and saw a wall of closed slots where she knew the bodies would be kept. She was looking for the newest body to enter the morgue. She needed to see what was really going on, because she had the feeling that that body had only entered the morgue through the machinations of some invisible hand. She hovered above the floor, raising herself up to the second highest row when she reached the L column.

She pressed the touchpad next to the slot she was facing and moved aside for the drawer to open. She felt a chill from the cold air released by the opening of the drawer and then peeled back the tarp concealing the body once that chill passed. "Richard Snow . . . let's see what you were really made of." She opened a compartment of her belt and pulled out a scanning tool, running it over his body.

"Human . . . but there's nanites swarming in his blood. They're decaying now, probably because he's not alive anymore. . . ." She opened another compartment of her belt, only for the alarm to suddenly go off. "Damn it." She pulled out her cutter and pricked the body with it, capturing a sample of blood for further examination. She quickly put the cutter back inside her belt and closed the belt, speeding out the way she came in. She hoped to make it out safely, but that was not to be.

When she exited onto the roof, she ended up running into the lights shined onto the roof by police hovercraft. Those lights also revealed Nova Blue officers with their rifles trained on her, as well as two people she really didn't want to see right now. Those two people were Solarflare and Nightside.

"Nightstar!" the Nova Blue squad leader shouted. "You are under arrest! You have the right to remain silent or anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law!"

"Waived!" Nightstar answered and lashed out with her energy whip, only for it to be caught by Nightside, who used it to yank her over. Nightstar dissipated the whip and flew at Nightside for a vicious punch. Nova Blue opened fire on Nightstar, forcing her to evade the energy blasts from their rifles. She dodged with superhuman alacrity and extended her energy wire, using it to slice through Nova Blue's weapons. The wire also cut through their armor, not enough to sever body parts but enough to cut them.

Solarflare and Nightside double-teamed Nightstar, assaulting her with blows from both sides. Nightstar blocked a punch from Solarflare while jumping to avoid a kick from Nightside. She flipped backwards and fired an optic blast at Solarflare and Nightside, the former retaliating with a blast of matter-disintegrating energy from his eyes. The blasts canceled each other out and Nightstar landed on her feet. Nightside charged at Nightstar with inhuman speed and assaulted her with similar ferocity. Nightstar blocked her punches and kicks and retaliated with her own.

Nightside flipped back and pulled out a small rod from her belt, pressing a button to telescope it into a four-foot staff. She whirled and struck Nightstar with it, but Nightstar trapped the staff against her side and used it to pull Nightside to her. Nightstar raised her knee to slam into Nightside's stomach with enough force to knock the breath out of her. Nightside grabbed Nightstar's leg and used it to throw her at the edge of the roof. Nightstar turned her unwilling flight into a cartwheel and landed on her feet.

A blur of superhuman motion suddenly struck her, but she blocked it, revealing it to be Solarflare. She spun with him and threw him at a police hovercraft. He flipped in midair and floated over the hovercraft. He flew at Nightstar and her at him, both of them meeting halfway with powerful punches. The punches sent both of them flying in opposite directions, Solarflare going further into the air and Nightstar crashing onto the roof. Nova Blue swarmed around the fallen Tamaranean hybrid, ready to take her in. One of them, however, noticed a small orb of reddish-orange energy rolling near her.

"Hey, Sarge, what's that?" one of the Nova Blue officers asked.

"Everyone, get out of the way, now!" the Nova Blue squad leader yelled. Everyone did exactly that, moving as far away from the orb as possible without jumping off the roof before the orb detonated. When any of them had the courage to take a good look at what was before them, they found smoke dissipating to reveal not much of anything. The rooftop looked burnt, but other than that there was no substantial damage to it. There was one other noticeable thing about it and that was that Nightstar wasn't on it anymore.

* * *

When Nightstar's senses fully reoriented themselves, she found herself lying on a futon and her head was lying on a pillow. Her first impression was that the futon she was lying on was very soft. It felt very comfortable on her back and she mused that she wouldn't mind having sex with someone, preferably Cipher, in it. Her second impression was that it would be awfully rude to have sex in someone else's bed.

"You're awake," a soft voice spoke to her.

Nightstar turned to her left to see a dark-haired girl dressed in the robes of a Shinto priestess. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Makoto Hino," the girl replied.

"Were you the one who brought me here?" Nightstar asked.

"That was me," a dry, scratchy male voice answered, causing Nightstar to turn in its direction. She saw a male figure dressed in a skintight red suit with a white design surrounding a yellow circle on the chest. White gloves and boots covered his hands and feet as well as his forearms and calves. He wore a red mask with a white front and yellow lenses, concealing the entirety of his face.

"Phoebus," Nightstar greeted. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Phoebus replied. "It's already started."

"What's already started?" Nightstar questioned.

"The beginning of the end for us," Phoebus answered. "I was watching the news before I checked in on you. They voted the Watchmen Act into law. As of this morning, any metahuman crime-fighter who doesn't register with the government becomes an enemy of the state. There's supposed to be a one-week grace period, but don't be surprised when they start going after any crime-fighters caught doing their thing without government registration before it's up."

"What? How did that happen?" Nightstar asked, sitting up in the futon.

"Mercury's actions made the human populace's fears of being killed in the crossfire of metahuman conflicts suddenly seem much more valid," Phoebus replied. "They've had this in mind for a few years now, but with the explosion of the metahuman population, this, and you getting into a fight with Nova Blue, they got the public support they needed to push it through." He chuckled bitterly before going on. "Of course, what they neglected to mention was that that man Mercury went and 'killed' was just moments before his death part of an assault on you by robotic 'mask hunters.'"

"I scanned his corpse," Nightstar said. "His blood was full of nanites. I managed to get a sample of it before someone triggered the alarm."

"That alarm had to have been triggered remotely," Phoebus concluded, "because you'd be more careful than to trigger it by accident. Therefore, someone doesn't want us figuring out the real nature of these mask hunters, someone who has a lot to gain by metahumans being placed under government control or eliminated."

"The OMACs – that's what they called themselves – came after both us and Tartarus," Nightstar explained. "They were able to disable some of us and they nearly killed Beast Girl before Mercury did what he did." She looked at Phoebus. "And how does anyone know about me breaking into the police morgue besides Nova Blue, those Infinity, Inc. punks, and you?"

"The police reported it," Phoebus replied. "They chose to interpret it as you trying to contaminate or destroy the evidence of Mercury's supposed guilt. That helped convince Congress that we couldn't be trusted to go about unrestricted anymore. Now they're talking about how we need to be held accountable for our actions." A bitter snort followed. "They want to control us and if they can't, they'll eliminate us. That's the endgame, Mar'i. The end of the line for us."

"If they want to hold someone accountable, they should be holding the people who sent those OMACs to kill us," Nightstar stated emphatically.

"True, but do you think whoever sent the OMACs after you would want the public knowing that there are killbots going after metahumans?" Phoebus asked. "It's not like the public so thoroughly distrusts us that they'd approve of metahumans being slaughtered in the streets."

"I have to go back to the others," Nightstar said.

"You can't," Phoebus answered. "You're a fugitive. You go back to Titans Tower, Nova Blue will track you down and have you and the other Titans arrested along with Mercury. For now, it's best you stay here where you're safe."

* * *

In Titans Tower, none of the remaining Titans had gone to school. It just seemed rather pointless to go, in light of what had happened to them. Mercury was sitting in the hospital ward of the police station's holding area in a catatonic state and Nightstar had gone missing after getting into a fight with Nova Blue while trying to figure out the mystery behind the OMAC-turned-corpse. Bladefire gazed at his communicator waiting for a call from his twin. Inferno manned the supercomputer, trying to track the OMACs. Beast Girl was beating the sand out of a punching bag in the training room while Samara was holding said punching bag and trying to remain steady.

"This isn't right!" Beast Girl roared, accenting her rage with a ferocious strike to the punching bag. "He didn't deserve that!" She struck the punching bag again. "Why would they do this? After all we've done for them, _why?_"

"Because they're ingrates," Samara replied harshly. "Because they don't trust us."

Beast Girl pummeled the punching bag viciously. "It's not right! It's not fair!"

"The world isn't fair to those born different from those with power," Samara answered. "The humans control the world and they want to control us along with it to keep it that way. If they can't, they'll kill us. It's that simple."

Beast Girl battered the punching bag. "We have to get him out of there!" she exclaimed.

"What's more important is that we find out where these OMACs came from and stop them," Samara replied. "What scares me is that they knew how to shut us down."

"I thought you didn't get scared by anything," Beast Girl mused, startled out of her haze of anger by Samara's admission.

"You know me better than that, Terri," Samara whispered.

"_Samara, Terri, come in,_" Bladefire called over their communicators. "_There's something you should see."_

Samara and Beast Girl went into the main room of Titans Tower to find Inferno sitting at the supercomputer with Bladefire next to him. They were both viewing a video on the computer and the video was of Mercury. In the video, Mercury summoned the energies of the Speed Force into his hand as a vaguely spherical structure of lightning-like energy. The video image blurred after that, a byproduct of the speed of his charge. The next clear image was Mercury with his Speed Force energy blade in the chest of one Richard Snow and that was where the video ended.

"That's not how it happened!" Beast Girl exclaimed furiously. "Where did this come from?"

"Found this on WeTube," Inferno replied. "It's got six thousand hits and counting so far."

"Obviously, it's edited," Bladefire added. "That's not what we should be worried about. What this means is that the OMAC attack was a setup for something like this to come out. With this jaundiced account of what happened making it into the public sphere and the news of Nightstar fighting Nova Blue and the new golden children, expect things to get worse before they get better."

"We're getting a call from the police," Inferno said, looking at the blinking console light. "Should we answer?"

"Answer," Bladefire ordered.

Inferno answered, revealing the image of Police Chief Devin Nauck. "Hello, Chief Nauck. What can we do for you?"

"You can tell me where Nightstar is," Chief Nauck replied tersely.

"We don't know where she is," Bladefire said. "She hasn't been in contact with us since last night."

"But you could find her if you wanted to," Chief Nauck suggested.

"And if we were to find her, what makes you think we'd give her to the same people who are railroading Mercury?" Beast Girl asked acerbically.

"You seem to be forgetting that your boyfriend rammed concentrated lightning into someone's chest and that your leader attempted to eliminate the evidence of that," Chief Nauck answered. "To be honest, I am sick and tired of you kids running around like you own this city. If the Watchmen Act can make you show some respect to those of us who weren't lucky enough to get superpowers, then more power to it. We're already tracking down Nightstar and if you don't want to join her and Mercury in prison, you will either help or stay out of the way." The communication signal closed.

"We have to find her first," Samara said. "Where is she?"

"With Phoebus," Inferno replied.

"How do you know that?" Samara inquired.

"Because he communicated with me telepathically," Inferno explained. "He was the one who saved Nightstar from being arrested by Nova Blue."

"There's something familiar about that man," Samara mused. "I can't put my finger on it, though . . . just something about him reminds me of someone close to me."

"He's a dangerous ally to have," Inferno warned. "He has a vendetta against Lena Luthor and he's got a killer instinct like nothing I've ever seen. Not exactly a guy you can team up with without keeping a close eye on him."

"NewsNet's reporting again," Bladefire said, shifting to the latest NewsNet webcast.

"_And in the latest news, Infinity, Inc. has registered themselves under the Watchmen Act,"_ the reporter spoke. _"Solarflare, the leader of Infinity, Inc., had this to say."_

The video cut to Solarflare, who had a rather smug grin on his face. _"We believe that as superheroes, we have to hold ourselves accountable to the people we protect. We only hope that the other superheroes will follow us in registration, so that we can forge a better future with humankind."_

"_Truer words were never spoken,"_ the reporter said after the video image returned to him. _"With Infinity, Inc. becoming the first superheroes registered under the Watchmen Act, the pressure is on for more established superheroes such as the Teen Titans and the Justice League to also submit to the Act. Is this the beginning of a new era of superhero activity, an era where those who use their special abilities to protect normal humans are regulated by the humans they protect? If it is, I'm certainly looking forward to it."_

Suddenly, the video feed was interrupted by another feed. The feed displayed an image of a seemingly faceless woman with long, wavy black hair. Her body could not be seen, as the feed closed in on her face, or lack thereof.

"_Do not attempt to change your channel. Do not attempt to change your station. Do not attempt to log into another site. This is a streaming leaderless bulletin and it is the only truth left in this world._

"_You're fools. Each and every one of you that supports this Watchmen Act is a fool. If you think the Watchmen Act will allow you to better regulate superheroes, guess what? _You_ won't be the ones regulating them. _They_ will, they being the corporatocracy that controls this nation and so much of the world. They'll use the people who once protected you to protect their own hegemonic interests and you'll be further marginalized, further disenfranchised. Don't let that happen. Fight back, damn you."_

Bladefire locked eyes with Inferno when the bulletin ended. "I'm going out."

"Where?" Inferno asked.

"To see a certain someone," Bladefire replied.

* * *

As the sun set, Bladefire looked out into the fading day. He saw the pinks, purples, indigos, yellows, reds, and oranges of the sky and marveled at how beautiful it was. Then he remembered that the sun was setting on a world where metahumans – crime-fighters or criminals – were now regarded as equally dangerous. He sighed bitterly and wondered how Nightstar was doing. She was probably going insane from having her freedom of movement restricted, as he was certain Phoebus was doing . . . for her safety, of course.

"Hi, Joh'n," a female voice greeted him. He turned around to see the same faceless woman from the earlier streaming bulletin standing before him. She was clad in a black leather duster over a black leather suit that molded to the feminine contours of her body. "Where's Mar'i?"

"Somewhere safe," Bladefire replied. "We could make small talk, but that would be pointless."

"Always direct, aren't you, Joh'nny boy?" the faceless woman commented sardonically. "Granddaddy Bat taught you well, didn't he?"

"I need your help, Intrigue," Bladefire said. "Someone is coming after us. Someone who has a database on metahumans and has their own metahuman-hunting killbots programmed with that information. Someone who turned human beings into metahuman-hunting killbots. I want to know who it is and how they were able to do this."

"Want me to investigate those Infinity, Inc. brats, too?" Intrigue asked.

"Considering Nightside's connection to Lena Luthor, yes," Bladefire replied. "They make me very suspicious. There's just something . . . off about them."

"Besides the fact that they've been stealing your thunder?" Intrigue quipped.

"I'm serious, Intrigue," Bladefire stated, his eyes glowing at the edges.

"They make me suspicious, too," Intrigue said. "Nothing good ever came from Lena Luthor without a Faustian price attached to it." She tilted her head. "Don't worry, Joh'n. I'll root out the truth behind Infinity, Inc. and those mask hunters."

* * *

When Bladefire returned to Titans Tower, he found the other Titans looking at him with concerned expressions. "What's going on?" he asked them.

"Another NewsNet webcast," Samara replied. "It seems the Justice League has a few skeletons in their closet that somebody went and exposed for the world to see. Speaking of the world . . ." She looked at the supercomputer. "Computer, replay the last NewsNet webcast."

Instantly, the screen flickered to life, showing the images of six costumed heroes battling foreign soldiers. A darkly tanned blond young man in a black-and-green leather uniform resembling modernized archer's attire launched concussion grenade arrows at the soldiers, knocking them unconscious. A woman in a black leather uniform and mask that appeared to have been stitched together moved through the soldiers like a demonic mannequin, taking them down with brutal ease. A man-shaped figure in red robes and a black costume with an altered S-shield blasted the soldiers with some kind of crimson energy. A young African-American woman in a black suit with a dark pink corset built into it stomped the ground, sending shockwaves through it and toppling several more soldiers. A blonde girl in a black-and-tan uniform fired blasts of molten energy at the soldiers' guns, turning them to slag. A young man in a red uniform with a yellow tunic and flaming "hair" projected blasts of nuclear force at the soldiers.

"_This footage, delivered by an anonymous source, shows a cadre of superheroes battling in Qurac,"_ the reporter narrated. _"Qurac has been the source of a great deal of controversy, particularly in light of the suspicion on the part of many nations in the West that it has harbored terrorists. Furthermore, the anonymous source of this footage has insinuated that these superheroes were acting on behalf of members of the Justice League. If this is true, then we may be seeing an example of an insidious god complex within the superhero community. If this is the case, then it shows us why we need the Watchmen Act."_

"Crap," Bladefire uttered.

"That was our reaction, too," Beast Girl replied. "I can't believe Gail was involved in this. I mean, that footage had to have been faked."

"It wasn't," Inferno said. "I went through that footage with a fine-tooth comb. It wasn't faked."

"Like I said, things are going to get worse before they get better," Bladefire said. "This is just the beginning."

* * *

End Notes: Well, things are just turning out worse and worse for our heroes, aren't they? Mercury's in jail (and in no condition to defend himself), Nightstar is a fugitive from the law, and metahuman heroes have generally lost the trust of the public.

Marvin Jurgens was named for Marv Wolfman and Dan Jurgens, the writer/artist combo that collaborated on Nightwing #125-128 and who previously worked in incarnations of the Teen Titans. Police Chief Devin Nauck was named for Devin Grayson and Todd Nauck, the former being the writer for the first issues of The Titans (which featured the grown-up original Titans with several other Titans from previous incarnations) and the latter being the artist for Young Justice and Teen Titans Go.

The heroes that appeared in that NewsNet footage are Green Arrow Connor Hawke, the illegitimate son of Oliver Queen; Cassandra Cain, formerly Batgirl and now Erinys (in my canon); Eradicator, a Kryptonian weapon merged with a human being; Thunder, the daughter of Black Lightning; Gaia, the daughter of Geo-Force; and Firestorm Jason Rusch, the successor to Ronnie Raymond, the original Firestorm.

Anyway, if you still care about this story at all, I hope you don't mind leaving me a review or two. Some feedback to let me know how I'm doing could help me a bit. Thanks a bunch.


	44. Justice: Bullets

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 4: "Bullets"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans and Justice League belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. Many of the characters you will see in here don't belong to me, but some of them do belong to me. I make no profit from this story, as I'm not writing professionally for DC; I'm just doing this for my own amusement.

Author's note: The proverbial crap has hit the proverbial fan and it's not going to stop there. The Titans and the League still have much, much more suffering to endure via the Society's machinations. In the meantime, you'll also be seeing the perspective of the ordinary humans, represented by one lone detective. Here goes.

* * *

Two men stood outside the holding cell of one Peter Maxwell Allen. Both of them were in their mid-forties and dressed similarly in button-down shirts and slacks. The former was a Caucasian man with whitening blond hair and the latter was a Hispanic man with brown hair that was starting to go gray. The Caucasian man, Detective Geoff Faerber, wore a white shirt with black tie and gray slacks. The Hispanic man, Detective John "J" Perez, wore a light gray-green shirt with a red tie and black slacks.

"Has he snapped out of it yet?" Faerber asked.

"No, he hasn't," J replied. "And I'm not surprised. The kid isn't a cold-blooded killer. Doing something like that had to mess him up inside."

"I don't care how messed-up inside he is," Faerber retorted. "People like that, with that much power, don't get to go around being that reckless. When he wakes up . . ."

"You'll do what?" J asked. "He's just a kid."

"Which is exactly why he shouldn't have been running around playing vigilante," Faerber replied. "Kids shouldn't be doing the jobs of trained officers of the law."

"Except most of the time, us 'trained officers of the law' have been pretty much helpless against meta-criminals," J rejoined. "Believe it or not, we need kids like him, kids who are willing to do something good with the abilities they got."

"I can vaguely understand that," Faerber admitted. "That's why there's the Watchmen Act. If these kids wanna fight crime that badly, they ought to be under some kind of oversight. That way, things like what happened to Richard Snow don't happen again."

"Don't you get the feeling that things aren't quite right here?" J asked.

"What do you mean?" Faerber asked.

"The Titans are usually more careful than that," J explained. "Even when they were in the middle of fights with meta-criminals, they'd be more careful about innocent people if they were in the area."

"They slipped up," Faerber stated. "What's so hard to grasp about that?"

"That's it, huh?" J remarked. "After all the good the Titans have done all these years, that's it. Screw them. Let them become government agents."

"You do realize that you're sounding like that terrorist, right?" Faerber commented.

"You do realize that you're being suckered, right?" J shot back. "There's something not quite right here. If you checked out the scene where Snow was killed, you might see that something doesn't add up."

"You and your conspiracies," Faerber remarked with a derisive snort. "The answer's right in front of you. These kids, these metas, they're out of control and we need to rein them in before it's too late."

"Too late for what?" J asked. "You make them sound like ticking time bombs."

"That's because they are," Faerber declared. "Ticking time bombs that could wipe out human life as we know it if we're not careful. The Watchmen Act's the best solution; they get to play hero and we get to keep them in check."

"You do realize that you're sounding like those alarmists, right?" J commented, turning Faerber's earlier statement on him.

"I've got a right to be alarmed," Faerber retorted. "You got people with the power of freaking Superman, for Christ's sake! Hell, one of those people took over a country twenty years ago all on their lonesome! You think people can actually be safe with people like that roaming the world?"

"It's like talking to a brick wall," J muttered, starting to walk away.

"Hey, where are you going?" Faerber asked. "I'm not done yet!"

"I am," J answered quietly.

* * *

The middle-aged detective made his way to his desk and began looking over the paperwork. In the background, the television set was chattering. He could hear enough to know that it was a replay of the Justice League's public conference last week. In light of that NewsNet webcast, the League needed all the positive spin it could put on this.

"_We're not trying to conquer anything,"_ J could hear Superman saying. _"That has never been our purpose. What we're trying to do is protect people. That's why we came together . . . and Batman took it to a level that the rest of us don't quite agree with. However, his reasons are understandable."_

"Understandable?" another detective, Mark Morrison, uttered in shocked anger. "They call setting up a shadow League to bust up other people's countries understandable?"

"They got a screwed-up definition of 'understandable,'" Faerber remarked, having followed J. "Then again, these 'superheroes' think they can do whatever the hell they want and expect us norms to go along with it. Arrogant bastards, all of them."

"I'd like to know where all this is coming from," J remarked.

"Good old investigative journalism, that's what," Morrison replied. "It's about time someone looked under the curtain."

"I'm glad you can be so accepting of what's presented to you," J drawled sarcastically.

"Quit looking for hidden agendas in everything," Morrison said.

"Morrison, if you were a competent detective at all, you'd know that there's almost always a hidden agenda somewhere," J retorted.

"Really?" Morrison asked. "Because the only 'hidden' agenda I see is theirs."

"These people have been saving the world for years," J brought up. "You'd think we'd give them the benefit of the doubt before we start making accusations."

"We the actual police have been busting gangs for years and the public hardly gives us the benefit of the doubt when the news starts its spiels about us being corrupt," Faerber answered. "I don't see why these meta-freaks, who by the way were never sanctioned by any kind of law, should be treated like saints."

"Watch the language," J said.

"You know what your problem is?" Faerber asked. "You put too much faith in these superheroes. Just because they throw on costumes and wave around flashy powers doesn't mean they don't have feet of clay."

"I get that," J answered. "Doesn't mean we tar them all with the same brush."

"Where were you when Nightstar was breaking into our morgue?" Morrison asked. "When she attacked Nova Blue officers?"

"All right, I'll admit that's not easily justifiable, but there's something more going on here," J replied. "I can feel it in my bones."

"Well, your bones are getting brittle," Morrison cracked.

"Screw you guys," J said. "I'm gonna see the chief." With that said, he exited for Chief Nauck's office and knocked on the window of her door.

* * *

"Who is it?" Chief Nauck asked.

"It's Perez," J replied. "Mind if I come in?"

"Make it fast," Chief Nauck answered.

J entered Chief Nauck's office and looked around, noticing a chair in front of her desk. He remained standing, not wanting to insult her by taking it upon himself to sit down. Finally, he bit the bullet and spoke what was on his mind. "I'd like to investigate Richard Snow's death," he said.

"What for?" Chief Nauck asked.

"Some things just don't add up," J replied. "What was he even doing in the tech sector that night? I read up on him and he wasn't a caterer for any tech firms. Even if he was, I don't see what he'd be doing out that late. Has the autopsy on him even been done yet?"

"Why do we need an autopsy?" Chief Nauck asked. "We know what killed him."

"Even with that, there was something else going on," J insisted.

"Look, John, I know you have a soft spot for these superheroes, but they broke the law," Chief Nauck said. "They were breaking the law just by existing, anyway, but then they made it worse on themselves. As officers of the law, we have to enforce it and that means that we crack down on vigilantes."

"I know you don't like it, but who's going to stop someone like Darkseid or Imperiex if they invade Earth?" J asked. "Whether you want to admit it or not, metahuman heroes have spent years protecting us from those kinds of threats without expecting anything in return."

"We can learn to take care of our own damn selves instead of expecting superheroes to protect us all the time," Chief Nauck answered.

"What about the Watchmen Act?" J asked. "You think it's ok to have the government controlling superheroes?"

"At least that way we can actually keep them from going too far," Chief Nauck replied.

"Ok, I'm done," J said.

"Just like that?" Chief Nauck questioned.

"Just like that," J replied bitterly. "It's clear that you and the rest of this damn department don't give a fig about the truth. I'm just gonna have to find out what's going on myself, aren't I?"

"You won't get any backing from this department if you do that," Chief Nauck stated.

"I already know that," J retorted, standing up and walking out of the chief's office.

* * *

As J exited the police station, he considered his next move. The forensic scientists had been over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb and they'd found the remains of an adhesive substance there. They'd also taken the blood spatter off the street and Mercury's glove. He could possibly ask one of them for extra analysis. Yeah, that'd be a good next move.

He returned to the police station and made a beeline for the forensic lab. Once there, he looked around until he spotted Kate Whistler. He walked up to her and greeted her politely. "Hi, Kate."

"Hey, J," Kate greeted morosely.

"Something bugging you?" J asked.

"Mercury," Kate replied. "He's not a killer. He doesn't have it in him. However Richard Snow died, it was a setup."

"That's what I've been thinking, too," J agreed.

"And there's something else," Kate added. "I took a closer look at Snow's blood . . . and I found something in it. I scanned at the nanoscopic level and his blood was swarming with mechanical probes of some kind. They're starting to decay, but they're still there."

"Where do you think it came from?" J asked.

"Could have been biomedical," Kate theorized. "However, nanomedicine isn't being widely used yet and there's nothing in his medical record that I've found to suggest that he'd need that kind of treatment."

"Then we should check out his doctor," J suggested. "See if he administered any nanomedical treatments to Snow before he died."

"Good idea," Kate said.

* * *

J exited the forensic lab and police station, only to feel his cell phone vibrating. He pulled it out and opened it, pressing the "answer" button and holding the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked.

"_You're in danger,"_ a female voice, low in timbre, replied. _"Get to your car now. Do not hurry."_

J walked to his car, moving at a relaxed pace. His walk was brisk, like someone who'd just walked away from a satisfying day at work, not someone who might be a target of unseen enemies. He reached his car, a 2025 Toyomi Solaris CRV, and unlocked the door. He slipped into his car, only to hear the voice again.

"_You're in your car now. Good. Drive."_

"Where?" J asked.

"_You won't find your answers from Richard Snow's doctor,"_ the voice answered. _"I can provide you with them, though. You simply have to trust me."_

"Why should I do that?" J questioned. "I don't even know how you got this number. I don't even know who you are."

"_You don't need to know who I am,"_ the voice responded. _"You simply have to trust me."_

"Could you at least tell me why I'm in danger?" J inquired.

"_Drive and I'll tell you,"_ the voice replied.

J turned on the loudspeaker option of his cell phone and plugged it into the holder near the gear stick. He inserted the key card into the slot to start the car and backed out of his parking space. Upon reversing into the parking lot, he drove out.

"I'm driving now," he said. "What is it?"

"_You're looking into something nobody in particular wants you to look into,"_ the voice explained. _"Some very powerful people in particular would prefer you not look into this. They're going to try to silence you, one way or another. Consider me your guardian angel."_

"Yeah, some guardian angel," J grumbled. "So what are these answers you said you'd provide for me?"

"_You're a good cop, Perez,"_ the voice answered. _"One of the few willing to use those critical thinking and analytical skills you mastered to make detective. One of the few who doesn't just swallow what they're fed. That makes you special and thus, I'm willing to lend you a hand."_

"Quit with the flattery and just tell me," J insisted.

"_Typical male,"_ the voice mocked. _"Always wanting to rush to the climax. If you insist. Richard Snow, like roughly seven million and eight hundred thousand other American citizens, had a nanovirus slipped into what was supposed to be a routine flu shot. The nanovirus was linked to a satellite that had been gathering intel on metahumans for years and when triggered, it would transform those citizens into cyber-soldiers programmed with one task: to hunt and kill metahumans."_

"How do you know this?" J asked.

"_I've been working this case for a week,"_ the voice replied. _"It was almost pathetically easy to deduce after I slipped past a sufficient number of firewalls and broke a sufficient number of fingers."_

"So somebody somewhere infected nearly eight million people with a nanovirus that would turn them into mask-hunting killing machines," J uttered, sagging slightly as the enormity of what he'd just been told caught up with him. "Who would do this? Why would they do this?"

"_Ever heard of the Department of Extranormal Operations?"_ the voice asked.

"Not really," J replied.

"_That's because publicly, they go by Bureau of Metahuman Affairs,"_ the voice explained. _"It's a presidential cabinet department aimed at addressing metahuman activity in America. Secretly, they've created counter-meta weaponry, some of which they've supplied to Nova Blue teams in police departments all over the nation. The OMACs are their trump card."_

"OMACs?" J asked.

"_Observational Metahuman Activity Constructs,"_ the voice explained. _"Abbreviated as OMAC. That's what the nanovirus turns the infected into. Machines whose sole purpose is to eliminate metahumans."_

"Why would they do that?" J asked.

"_Because to them, metahumans are too numerous,"_ the voice replied. _"Ninety-nine-point-five percent of the metahuman population is nuisance level at best, like kids with minor telekinetic abilities and old ladies with limited prescient talents. Not that special at all. But the remaining half percent are the people you see on the news, the people you see in the flashy costumes throwing around energy blasts and flying . . . they're what the satellite classifies as Alpha- and Beta-level threats. They're the ones the D.E.O. particularly wants to eliminate, because they're the ones with such great power that they could subjugate humanity if they wanted to."_

"But they don't want to," J said. "Not most of them, anyway."

"_It doesn't matter to the D.E.O.,"_ the voice answered. _"Combined with the fact that Alpha-level and Beta-level metahumans are more numerous now than they were fifteen years ago, it's convinced them that humanity is in imminent danger of extinction. That's why the OMACs were created: to 'protect' humanity."_

J continued to drive, his expression growing grimmer. "Hell," he uttered. "How . . . what the freak is wrong with these people?"

"_They want to ensure that they remain top dog,"_ the voice replied. _"It's not really about protecting the human race; it's about ensuring that the elites can maintain their dominance."_

"What about the Watchmen Act?" J asked. "If they wanna eliminate metahumans, why pass the Watchmen Act?"

"_The Watchmen Act was a congressional act, not a presidential one,"_ the voice explained. _"However, it suits the D.E.O.'s purposes. With it, they can distinguish the 'manageable' metas from the 'unmanageable' ones. The latter get to be wasted by OMACs."_

Suddenly, J heard a loud noise on top of his car, as though someone had just landed on it. "What the –?" he uttered before he was torn from his car and thrown out onto the sidewalk. His car, which had been moving, kept moving based on sheer inertia and crashed into another car, which ultimately produced a four-car pile-up. "What's going on?"

"Detective John Perez?" a low baritone spoke. "This is your last stop."

J looked up and saw a man standing over him, or at least what looked like a man. He was clad in black from head to toe, the material skintight and gleaming metallically. White eyes stared out from the mask and red lines ran through the uniform and mask. All in all, the man looked very menacing.

"Who are you?" J asked.

"Spin Doctor," the man replied.

J rose to his feet and pulled out his handgun. "Not a single step closer!" he shouted. "I'll shoot if I have to!"

"Go ahead and shoot," Spin Doctor answered. "You'll miss."

J flipped off the safety and opened fire. To his shock, Spin Doctor's upper body was a blur of motion as every single bullet missed the black-clad metahuman. J's eyes were wide with horror when he realized that he'd spent his entire clip on someone who was too swift to be hit by bullets. Before the detective could reload, Spin Doctor slammed him into a nearby wall at superhuman speed.

"You really ought not to poke your nose in where it's not wanted," Spin Doctor hissed. "You might get it shot off."

"Now I know I'm on the right track," J managed to gasp out despite Spin Doctor's forearm on his throat. "Who do you work for? The people who came up with the Watchmen Act? You one of their goons?" He suddenly felt something squeezing his heart and screamed in pain. He looked down and saw that Spin Doctor's arm had mysteriously cut off at the wrist, a wrist that was pressed against his chest. Just as he thought he was going to die, he unexpectedly felt the squeezing against his heart stop. He looked down again and saw Spin Doctor with an electrical arrow in his arm.

"Hey there, honey," a female voice greeted sardonically, prompting J to turn around and see the Scarlet Archer, bow in hand.

"Scarlet Archer?" J asked. "Were you the voice on my cell?"

"No, that's someone else," Scarlet Archer replied. "She just sent me here to look out for you while she told you what you needed to know. Come on, we'd better get to the Titans before that guy recovers."

"Something tells me that it won't take a long time for him to do that," J said.

Scarlet Archer guided J to a crimson motorcycle with an arrow-shaped fairing. She straddled the motorcycle and told him to get on behind her. J obeyed and she handed him a spare helmet after donning her own. He put on the helmet and wrapped his arms around the archer's leather-clad waist.

"Hold on tight," she advised before starting the motorcycle and driving away at the motorcycle's full speed of 220 mph.

"Whoa!" J exclaimed. "Slow down!"

"_What?_" Scarlet Archer shouted over the wind resistance from the motorcycle's speed.

"_Slow down!_" J shouted.

"_If you say so!_" Scarlet Archer hollered and slowed down to a respectable 180 mph. She rode her motorcycle all the way to a secret doorway. She parked her motorcycle and got off, J following suit. Scarlet Archer removed her domino mask and locked her eye onto the retinal scanner.

"_Identity confirmed. Scarlet Archer, formerly Speedy. Welcome,"_ an automated voice spoke. The door slid open, allowing Scarlet Archer and J access. They stepped down a stairway, Scarlet Archer placing her mask back on as she walked. At the bottom of the stairway, the two found a pod sitting on a watery surface.

"Are we supposed to get in there?" J asked.

"It's how we get to Titans Island," Scarlet Archer replied, stepping into the pod. J followed her inside and the pod closed over them, sinking underneath the surface and launching itself across the bay to Titans Island. Once there, it rose to the surface and opened, releasing J and Scarlet Archer, who walked up to the entrance of Titans Tower. The door slid open and the two found Bladefire on the other side.

* * *

"Scarlet Archer," Bladefire greeted. He looked over and saw J. "Who might you be?"

"Detective John Perez," J replied.

"Mind if we come inside?" Scarlet Archer inquired. "Detective Perez is in some serious trouble."

"Come in," Bladefire answered. After they entered, Bladefire guided them into the common room.

"Heh, the Tower's changed since my days as a Titan," Scarlet Archer commented.

"No time for nostalgia," Inferno said. "Now, who's the suit and what's going on?"

"I've been trying to investigate what really happened that night Mercury killed Richard Snow," J explained. "I talked to forensics and they found nanomachines in his blood. When I was about to go further, someone called me, a woman, and told me that I was in danger. She explained to me that Snow was infected with some kind of nanovirus that turned him into a killing machine aimed at metahumans. Called it an OMAC."

"Those machines haven't just gone after you guys," Scarlet Archer said. "They're targeting metahumans everywhere."

"We know," Samara said. "The Steel Angels were attacked at the last stop on their tour. Of course, there were anti-meta activists protesting at that particular concert, anyway . . ."

"And then there's the Titans East," Scarlet Archer added. "And even more others."

"Who would do something like this to us?" Beast Girl asked. "What kind of person thinks up ways to kill us?"

"The original Batman?" Inferno cracked darkly.

"It was the D.E.O.," J asserted. "For them, the OMACs are a way of countering the surge in the metahuman population."

"If the government is trying to kill us, why did they pass the Watchmen Act?" Inferno wondered.

"The Watchmen Act is the public stage of the government's attempt to check metahumans," Scarlet Archer explained. "Make the ordinary American feel like he or she's safer with metas being under the control of the government than acting on their own. Then there's the secret phase and that's where the OMACs come in."

"How many people have been infected with that nanovirus?" Bladefire asked.

"Roughly 7.8 million, which equals the current metahuman population," Scarlet Archer answered.

"How do you know all this?" Beast Girl asked.

"Intrigue," Scarlet Archer replied. "She was the one who brought me and Johnny here together."

"I'm married, by the way," J said.

"Then you're officially a philanderer," Scarlet Archer joked, winking at him under her mask.

"Intrigue?" Beast Girl uttered in shock. "That conspiracy nut? You had _her_ investigating this?"

"Fine, she's wound a little too tightly and has a few too many messianic aspirations for my liking, but if anyone could find the truth, she could," Bladefire answered. "That's why I went to her."

"Did you guys register?" Scarlet Archer asked.

"We got an offer from Roy Harper three days ago," Bladefire replied. "He said that if we registered, the D.E.O. would convince the president to pardon Nightstar and Mercury. We told him to shove it, and with what you just told us, there's no way in hell we're registering. Not with a system that's trying to destroy us."

"I understand," Scarlet Archer said. "I quit after the League registered. So did Batman and Green Lantern. That's how Intrigue found me. Put me on Johnny's tail and the rest is history."

"What's the danger?" Bladefire asked.

"Someone tried to kill me," J replied. "A man in a black costume. I emptied my whole clip at him and hit nothing but air. Then he . . . he did something to me. I felt like my heart was being squeezed. Scarlet Archer saved me from him."

"As you can tell from that statement, the people behind the Watchmen Act don't want people looking behind the curtain," Scarlet Archer remarked.

"I think I get it now," Beast Girl said. "Mercury killing Richard Snow was what got the government to stop talking about the Watchmen Act and actually pass it. Or, to be more accurate, that was just a setup so that the government would have a reason for passing the Watchmen Act that they could sell to the public."

"And you win the prize," Scarlet Archer quipped.

"And as if all that wasn't enough, the villains certainly haven't been lying low," Samara replied. "But someone keeps warning us about them."

"We don't know who it is," Inferno added. "They use a scrambled channel so we can't trace it and disguise their voice, so we can't even tell if it's a man or a woman. Whoever it is, their intel has been dead on. Unfortunately, Infinity, Inc. keeps interfering with us, telling us to back off because we're not registered."

"And the grace period's pretty much up, which means we're going to be outlaws pretty soon," Beast Girl joined in.

Just then, the mainframe console began to beep, signaling a communication signal. Bladefire answered and the grim image of Chief Nauck filled the screen. "Chief," he greeted tonelessly. "What brings you here?"

Chief Nauck glared at Beast Girl. "Did your boyfriend get you back to the Tower that fast?" she asked harshly.

"What are you talking about?" Beast Girl asked. "My boyfriend is still in a holding cell because you don't know all the facts and yet you wanna see him in Alcatraz, anyway!"

"He's not in his holding cell anymore," Chief Nauck retorted. "He's not in it because you broke him out of it and killed several of my men in the process. I'd gladly see you all arrested and locked up forever for that, but I've been told by the BMA that you're no longer in my jurisdiction. Since the grace period is up, you're officially criminals under the Watchmen Act and that's a federal matter. It's out of my hands now, but I'm going to enjoy seeing you all locked away like the out-of-control brats you are." She looked more closely and spotted J. "Ah, Detective Perez, my favorite Titan supporter. Since I have no choice but to assume that you're cooperating with these killers, I'm going to have to have you arrested."

"You can't do that!" J exclaimed. "Don't you get it? This isn't what it looks like! Don't you see what kind of setup this is?"

"We'll sort that out later," Chief Nauck responded. "Until then, you're under arrest and I'm sending Nova Blue to bring you in."

"I thought this was out of your jurisdiction," Scarlet Archer said.

"You costumes are," Chief Nauck answered. "'Detective' Perez was one of my officers and I still have jurisdiction over him." She closed the communication.

"Who are they going to send after us?" Beast Girl asked.

"Whoever it is, they're going to make you regret asking that question," Scarlet Archer replied bleakly.

* * *

End Notes: And things keep getting worse, don't they? Who is the false Beast Girl who set Mercury free? Who has been warning the remaining Titans about villainous activity? When is Nightstar going to return? Will Mercury awaken from his catatonic state . . . or has he already? The answers to these questions and more will be coming next chapter.

In the meantime, "Geoff Faerber" is named for Geoff Johns and Jay Faerber, the current and former Titans comic writers respectively. "J Perez" is named for J. Torres, the current artist on Teen Titans Go and George Perez, the artist who collaborated with Marv Wolfman on New Teen Titans. "Mark Morrison" is named for Mark Millar, currently a Marvel writer and formerly the writer for The Authority on DC's Wildstorm imprint, and Grant Morrison, the initial writer for the previous volume of Justice League of America.

Anyway, I'd be pretty happy if you gave me some feedback to let me know how I'm doing.


	45. Justice: Bender

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 5: "Bender"

Disclaimer: The Teen Titans and the various other denizens of the DC Universe, comic or animated, don't exactly belong to me. They belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers and I make no profit at all from this story, as I'm not a professional writer for either. I'm doing this purely for my own enjoyment and maybe your feedback.

Author's note: The crap is really starting to hit the fan. I know I might have said that before, but I was serious when I said it then and I'm serious when I say it now. And what's about to happen will make things far, far worse for the Teen Titans and the Justice League. For those of you who enjoyed seeing a regular police officer who doesn't have a mad-on for costumed vigilantes, I'm sorry to say that you might not be seeing that much of J. What's about to come is, in the words of the late Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist, "a contest of freaks" and J is too normal to actually have a shot at surviving. Anyway, if I haven't totally put you off with that statement, let's get going.

* * *

"It's happening again," Ted Grant, alias the champion boxer and superhero Wildcat, groaned as he watched the President of the United States give his speech.

"I know what you mean," Jay Garrick, the first Flash, agreed sadly.

"_In this day and age, we can no longer afford to be complacent. The truth is that we have a very real enemy in our midst . . . metahuman terrorism. These people answer to no government, no higher authority except their own beliefs as to what right and wrong are. For too long, we have allowed these beings to pretend that they are gods, that they have an almost divine right to utilize their abilities as they will as long as they claim to be protecting normal humans. The night Richard Snow was murdered should have been the night that we woke up, that we realized that we cannot allow metahumans to go unchecked. That is why the Watchmen Act exists and any opposition to it is a vote to allow more innocent lives to be lost through the actions of reckless super-powered vigilantes."_

"Somebody should tell that asshole to shut his trap," Jenny Quick sneered.

"Language, Jenny," Jay admonished gently.

"Sorry, Jay," Jenny said. "I'm just sick of everyone in the government talking as though _we're_ the threat. We've spent decades saving humanity from super-villains and they're going to treat _us_ like we're the real problem?"

"Over 60 years ago, something similar to this happened," Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern and granddaughter to the current Green Lantern, explained. "We wouldn't use our powers to kill for our country, so we were accused of being disloyal to our country. They tried to pass a law making us register and we disbanded rather than do that. And now it's begun all over again, only this time you're automatically a threat if you have special abilities . . . unless you're with the government and then you're just fine."

Kal-El, the original Superman, looked out into the night sky sadly. His hair had gone slightly gray at the temples and there were a few more wrinkles on his face, but he was otherwise very youthful in appearance. Besides, the solar energy his body had spent years collecting had supercharged him beyond his former power levels.

"I still don't agree with the League choosing to register," he said. "I know Kon told me that he figured the League had a better chance of turning the course of that river around from the inside, but I have my doubts." He looked at Alan ruefully. "Your granddaughter . . ."

". . . is unregistered," Alan finished. "I know that. I'm also capable of pulling enough strings with Checkmate to see that metahuman villain activity has become a lot more organized as of late, as though there's some kind of purpose behind it."

"You think there's a connection between that and what's happening to us?" Jakeem Thunder asked.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Alan replied. "Of course, they have the _registered_ heroes to keep things under control." He snickered bitterly. "I have to admit, it's a hell of an opportunity for some up-and-coming superhero. Sign up and get access to impressive government technology, back-engineered from what various aliens who've worked with us in the past have given us, to make them more effective crime-fighters."

"And how long is it going to be until the government uses metahumans to fight wars for it?" Wildcat asked.

Courtney Dugan, alias Starwoman and formerly the Star-Spangled Kid and Stargirl, balanced herself with her staff. "That's happening already, believe it or not," she replied, "and even if it wasn't, it's going to start soon."

Jakeem turned on the news and his jaw dropped in shock. The news bulletin was reporting on Mercury's "escape" from his holding cell, facilitated by an apparently murderous Beast Girl. "Well, doesn't that just freak all?"

"Has to be some kind of setup," Michael Holt, the second man to take the name of Mr. Terrific, answered. "And even if it wasn't, it'll put the Titans in some serious trouble with the authorities."

* * *

In Jump City, Mercury was being helped away from the police station by someone who looked very much like Beast Girl. The platinum speedster had just awoken from his catatonic state, snapped out of it by her kiss. He was still very groggy and not sure of anything around him at that moment.

"It's ok, Mercury," the Beast Girl doppelganger whispered. "We'll be far away from here. Can you still run?"

"I'll try," Mercury replied. He picked up the Beast Girl doppelganger and ran as fast as he could, going from zero to Mach 3 in five seconds. As he ran, he felt the fog within his mind clear and with that clarity, he threw the Beast Girl doppelganger off him.

"What are you doing?" she asked in shock.

"You're not Terri," he snarled. "You think I wouldn't know how my own girlfriend kisses me?"

"No fooling you when it comes to that bitch, is there?" the false Beast Girl remarked as she shifted back into her true form of Gemini. She thrust her clawed hand at Mercury rapidly, but Mercury dodged and charged at her. She thrust both hands at Mercury to catch him, but he accelerated the kinetic energy of her molecules to detonate her, thus forcing her to let him go. Gemini re-formed herself and lashed at him with tentacle-like finger-blades that the speedster evaded. One managed to slice his cheek, but that wound quickly began to seal itself.

Mercury raised both hands in finger-snapping positions as she shot her clawed fingers at him again, making no move to evade. Of course, his brain was processing the data his senses were acquiring at super-speed, so Gemini looked rather slow to him, anyway. He snapped his fingers at super-speed, setting off twin sonic booms that even Gemini's rubbery frame could not withstand. She burst from the sonic booms, only to regenerate and lunge at him with her fingers extended into blades. Mercury dodged her slashes and retaliated with fierce blows, only for those blows to be absorbed by her malleable form. Before the fight could truly escalate, a lattice of crimson light engulfed both of them.

"You might as well stop," Garnet said, hovering above the combatants.

"Let go!" Gemini yelled, slicing at her restraints. Considering that her restraints were made from hard light, it would not be a very easy task, assuming it was a task that could be accomplished. Mercury simply vibrated out of the lattice.

"Thanks for the help," Mercury said.

"You're an escaped criminal," Garnet answered harshly. "And you're going to go back to your holding cell where you can await your trial and conviction."

"Get out of my way," Mercury snapped. "What I did was a setup. I was maneuvered into that position!"

"So you say," Garnet mused, sounding as though she didn't seriously believe him. "If you want to argue that, you can do so at your trial like a responsible citizen. If you want to throw down, be my guest. But you'll lose."

"I don't have time for this," Mercury answered and sped away, only for Garnet to project a slippery crimson surface underneath the speedster's feet. He slipped and crumpled to the ground, crashing into a parked car in the process.

"You might want to just stop," Garnet advised.

Mercury rose to his feet with a snarl. "Screw this," he muttered and attempted to run again, only for Garnet to trap him in a crimson bubble. He attempted to vibrate out, but the bubble vibrated with him, preventing him from escaping. He simply vibrated the bubble construct until it dissipated.

"Resisting arrest?" Garnet asked.

"Since when were you an officer of the law?" Mercury asked.

"Since the Watchmen Act was passed last week," Garnet replied. "I hate to break it to you, but your Titan pals are outlaws now, just like you."

"You're calling us outlaws?" Mercury uttered in stunned horror. "After all we've done, protecting this city for the past two years . . . and _we're_ the outlaws? _We're_ the criminals? Screw that noise!" He snapped his fingers and set off a sonic boom that would have sent Garnet flying if she hadn't generated a shield to protect herself. Garnet sent a clawed crimson hand flying at Mercury, but the speedster jumped on her construct and ran up its arm to kick her. As the two descended, he rolled in the air to drop his foot on her again. With her collapsed on the street, he sped away again, hoping he could make it to Titans Tower in time.

_Gemini setting me free as Beast Girl was a setup,_ he thought. _She was just trying to throw more dirt on our names. It probably worked, and that means the Titans are in trouble._

* * *

He ran down the bay to Titans Tower and dematerialized through the front door, rematerializing once inside and running into the main room. When he got there, the first thing he saw was pandemonium. He saw the Titans and Scarlet Archer battling a group of people that seemed to have a patriotic theme running. Their leader was a man garbed in skintight blue with white stars on his shoulders and knees and a golden belt shaped like a bald eagle wrapped around his hips. He was blond with a faceplate resembling an eagle covering his face. The others were several identical-looking men garbed in black with white star outlines all over their bodies, as well as a redhead in a green mini-dress and a crown matching that of the Statue of Liberty. There was also a masked brunette in a star-spangled blue top and red-and-white-striped skirt, and an extremely swift man dressed in metallic-looking black with red lines running through his attire.

The identical men spotted Mercury and swarmed on him. "Who the hell are you guys?" Mercury asked as he dodged their attacks.

"Si . . ." one started.

"Lent . . ." another picked up.

"Ma . . ." the third continued.

"Jor . . ." the fourth went on.

"Ity," the fifth finished.

"Multipliers," Mercury groaned. "Unlucky for you bastards, you're not the only ones who can replicate."

The speedster internally sighed and hoped his trick worked. For this, he was going to have to give himself over, at least partially, to one of the speedsters residing within the Speed Force. He rolled his eyes in the back of his head and silently reached out to the Speed Force, contacting the speedster he had in mind for this. He psychically synched with that speedster . . . and four copies of himself emerged, two on either side of him.

"Go time," he said and each Mercury took on one of the Silent Majorities. The Silent Majorities battled the Mercury doppelgangers, only to be swiftly overwhelmed by the Mercury doppelgangers. After all, multiplying didn't exactly work on a speedster who could also multiply. Before the Mercury doppelgangers could land the finishing blows, they were suddenly assaulted by the black-and-red-clad man and swiftly disabled, leaving only the real Mercury behind.

"And who might you be?" Mercury asked.

"Spin Doctor," the black-and-red-clad speedster replied.

"Where's that bitch-ass whore of a leader of yours?" the star-spangled and eagle-masked leader asked cruelly.

Bladefire slashed at him with his energy sword. "You shut up about her, Americommando."

Americommando summoned a photon shield around his left forearm and blocked Bladefire's sword. He then bashed the shield into Bladefire's face and used its edge to slash him. Fortunately, the Tamaranean fabric of his uniform held fast.

"You miserable little piece of crap!" Americommando yelled. "All of you! You punk kids think you're so cool for rebelling against the government, do you? Well, the government's there to do what the people can't do for themselves and that's protecting them from the likes of you rebels!"

Samara telekinetically threw him into a wall. "Quit rambling, you lunatic."

Americommando rose from his crumpled position with an outraged expression on what could be seen of his face. He converted his photon shield into a photon blaster that cleaved through Samara's shields. He was about to pounce on her when Inferno shot multiple fireballs at him to get him to back away. He threw up a fiery shield to block an energy blast fired at him by the Statue of Liberty-styled woman from her torch.

"Lady Liberty," Inferno commented. "Is this any way to honor your namesake?"

"I _am_ honoring my namesake, Mr. Crockett," Lady Liberty replied with a soft hint of a Southern accent. "I'm safeguarding liberty from those who would undermine it, like those of you who don't feel like registering."

"A badge from the government doesn't equal legitimacy," Inferno retorted, slicing the air with his hand to send an arc of flame in her direction. Lady Liberty blocked the blast with a shield from her torch and blasted Inferno with said torch.

The woman in the American flag dress clapped her hands and transmuted the floor into a liquid substance that trapped Beast Girl's feet before she could shift into an animal form to evade or attack. Beast Girl morphed into a lioness, but the shifting floor managed to hold her in place. She tried to change into a bird, but her talons were stuck in the floor and so she couldn't fly away. She even became a worm, but she was still trapped in the floor. Finally, she reverted to her human form . . . and blew a hole in the floor via her earth energy to break free.

"Miss America!" Scarlet Archer shouted, releasing an arrow in the direction of the woman in the American flag dress. The woman was struck in the torso by the arrow and an energy lattice emanated from the head, binding her. "Can't transmute if you can't use your hands, can you?"

Spin Doctor and Silent Majority teamed up to attack Mercury, the former using his speed and the latter replicating to keep Mercury off-balance. Mercury fought back against Silent Majority's duplicates, but Spin Doctor's speed was unbalancing him. The strange thing was that Spin Doctor seemed faster than him and there was something just wrong with that. Not because of ego so much as something just wasn't right about the way he moved. There was a vague distortion about him, as though he didn't quite exist in this space.

Americommando summoned his photon shield and charged at Inferno and Bladefire, who both blasted at him. Inferno shot a blast of flame at him and Bladefire projected an optic blast at him. Americommando simply blocked both with his shield, along with the hard-flame and energy knives Inferno and Bladefire threw at him next.

"Give it up, you brats," he snarled.

Suddenly, a purple energy whip wrapped around his arm just as he was rearing it back for a vicious punch. He was rather undaunted by that, but he was not so undaunted by the black boot that slammed into his face. Nor was he undaunted by the vicious punch from a golden-bronze fist that followed.

"Get the hell out of my Tower," Nightstar snarled, her fists glowing a smoky purple and her eyes lurid with wrath. Beside her stood the pyromancer Phoebus . . . and he didn't look that happy, either.

* * *

"There's the whoring little bitch I was hoping to meet," Americommando sneered.

"So you're the ones the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive sent for us," Phoebus intoned wrathfully.

"Huh?" Inferno asked.

"Otherwise known as S.H.A.D.E.," Phoebus explained to the younger pyromancer. "They're a military black ops organization that investigates metahuman threats to 'national security' with the intention of eliminating those threats. Apparently, any metahuman who doesn't volunteer to become a pawn of the government counts as a threat to national security."

Americommando got back on his feet with his body language being positively livid. "You just don't get it, do you?" he spat. "You live in this country, you're answerable to its laws whether you like them or not. You don't get a free pass just because you have powers."

"Americommando," Phoebus sneered. "Just because you have a badge from the government doesn't mean you're any more legitimate than we are. If anything, that just makes you a dog . . . and I'm putting you down."

"S.H.A.D.E.'s had its eye on you for a while now, Phoebus," Americommando said. "Ever since you attacked one of Lena Luthor's labs. S.H.A.D.E. has what you might call a vested interest in Ms. Luthor's work and we don't appreciate the interference of mavericks."

"Thank you," Phoebus sneered.

"What the hell's going on here?" Nightstar asked.

"What do you think?" a recovered Samara asked. "S.H.A.D.E. is obviously working with Lena Luthor to engineer metahuman soldiers. Why send many thousands of human troops to overthrow a dictator when a few hundred highly trained metahumans will do the job even better?"

Lady Liberty blasted Nightstar with the energy from her torch, only for Nightstar to block the blast with her bracers. Nightstar flew at Lady Liberty, only for Lady Liberty to block her attack with a shield generated by her torch. Nightstar merely summoned her energy whip and sliced at the shield with it. However, she was suddenly attacked by a black blur of motion. That same blur struck down Bladefire, Inferno, and Phoebus, leaving them floored. Samara threw up a telekinetic shield to block the blur's attack, but the blur reached through her shield and clocked her. An electrical arrow flew at the blur, but it stopped to catch it, revealing itself to be Spin Doctor.

"I don't fall for the same trick twice," Spin Doctor spoke.

"What makes you think I tried the same trick twice?" Scarlet Archer asked, pressing a button she'd hidden behind her back. The arrow set off an electrical pulse that shocked Spin Doctor. The insulation in his suit protected him from being completely electrocuted, but something else happened. "Not so fast, now are you?"

Spin Doctor attempted to charge at Scarlet Archer, only to be clocked by the red-clad archer . . . who had slipped on her trench knives. "It's not you that's fast, it's the suit," Scarlet Archer said. "In fact, that's not even real speed; it's experimental spatial-shift technology. By shifting yourself slightly out of phase with this dimension, you can move relatively faster than everyone else and pass through solid objects. With that tech in your suit shorted out, you're helpless."

Mercury was swarmed by duplicates of Silent Majority. He had to admit, Silent Majority was more skillful with the application of his duplication abilities than Multiplicity. That was probably why he was having so much trouble with the duplicator. Still, he wasn't going to let himself be defeated that easily. Besides, he was Mercury, dammit; that meant he could take on more than one idiot at once. Just as that thought passed through his mind, he felt something come over him.

"What . . ."

"The . . ."

"Hell . . ."

"Is . . ."

"Happening?" the duplicates of Silent Majority asked just before a surge of Speed Force energy knocked them off Mercury. The speedster stood where they had been, his eyes molten and his body emitting a crackling blue aura. He disappeared from sight and reappeared with his fist embedded in the gut of one Silent Majority, knocking him out. Another Silent Majority attempted to attack, only for Mercury to kick him in the gut so swiftly that it was almost as though his leg hadn't moved at all. The remaining Silent Majorities attempted to attack together, but Mercury saw them all as moving so slowly that they couldn't do much to stop him.

Americommando and Lady Liberty blasted at Mercury with their photon generator and torch respectively, but a field emerged around Mercury that sapped the energy from their respective attacks. Again, he disappeared from sight, reappearing to strike them both down with such rapidity that it almost seemed simultaneous. Americommando recovered and his photon generator manifested a shield, which he attempted to use to slice Mercury, but Mercury evaded the shield and struck Americommando. Before he could follow up on that attack, he was attacked by several speeding blurs. He was able to perceive them clearly enough to identify them as . . .

"Hermes, Solarflare, and Ultraviolet," Mercury snarled. "I was wondering when you guys would show up."

* * *

"Infinity, Inc.!" Nightstar exclaimed. "What's the meaning of this?"

"Under the Watchmen Act, registered metahumans can be commissioned to apprehend unregistered metahuman combatants," Solarflare replied. "We're registered. You're not. Do the math, Nightstar."

"Well, you guys always talked like you wanted to kick our asses," Beast Girl said. "Wanna see if you can?"

Aquamarine smirked and shattered the water pipes in Titans Tower, sending the water flooding upon the Titans. Samara created a telekinetic field to protect herself, the other Titans, Scarlet Archer, and Phoebus. Aquamarine manipulated the water into a battering ram that struck Samara's shield in an attempt to break it. The shield held, but Samara was straining to maintain it.

"Why don't _we_ give it a try?" Solarflare asked. He and Ultraviolet charged at the shield and began battering it with superhumanly strong punches and kicks.

"How much do you think you can take, witch?" Ultraviolet asked tauntingly.

"More than you can," Samara retorted and expanded the telekinetic shield into an attacking instrument that pushed Ultraviolet and Solarflare back. She withdrew the shield into herself with a sigh. "Inferno, Phoebus, Mercury, you three better stay back. Your powers are useless with the Tower flooded like this."

"What about you guys?" Mercury asked.

"We can fly or swim," Nightstar replied.

True to her word, Nightstar, Bladefire, and Samara floated into the air, as did Solarflare, Ultraviolet, and Garnet. Ultraviolet flew at Nightstar and punched her in the face, sending her tumbling gracelessly through the air. Nightstar righted herself in midair and flew into a kick that propelled Ultraviolet toward a window. Ultraviolet bounced off the window and barreled into Nightstar, knocking the other girl off-balance. Nightstar extended her energy whip and it wrapped around Ultraviolet's ankle. She used it to swing Ultraviolet into a wall, but Ultraviolet freed herself and trapped Nightstar in an ultraviolet-light lariat.

"That feels quite nice," Nightstar commented darkly.

"What do you mean?" Ultraviolet asked, tightening the lariat.

"You'll see," Nightstar replied. "Oh, you'll see."

"Don't try to act like you still have cards to play," Ultraviolet sneered. "You're pretty much dead in the water."

Bladefire and Solarflare clashed in midair, the slightly stronger Solarflare beating down Bladefire. Bladefire flew back and threw energy knives at Solarflare, who batted them aside and fired an optic blast of matter-disintegrating energy at Bladefire. The Tamaranean hybrid evaded the blast, only for a section of the wall behind him to be disintegrated. He retaliated with an optic blast that Solarflare dodged, the teenage Superman pastiche slamming into Bladefire with full force in retaliation. Bladefire flipped them around and kicked Solarflare off him, sending him plummeting into the floodwaters of the main room.

Aquamarine had sank into the floodwaters and blended with them, figuring she'd attack the grounded Titans while they were vulnerable. Unfortunately for her, she was blocked by Beast Girl, who had grown fins and gills. Aquamarine manipulated the water as a jet to batter Beast Girl, but Beast Girl maintained her ground. She swam at Aquamarine and rammed her in the stomach with her head. Aquamarine wrapped her arms and legs around Beast Girl and slammed her onto the floor. Beast Girl became an electric eel and set off a bioelectric discharge that stunned Aquamarine.

Samara and Garnet were in the middle of a construct battle. Garnet materialized crimson plasma fists and sent them flying at Samara, who halved them with a shadow construct sword. Garnet created a construct sword of her own and sliced at Samara with it. Samara parried Garnet's slashes and retaliated with shadow construct throwing knives. Garnet blocked the knives with a plasma shield and slashed at Samara again. Samara engulfed Garnet in a telekinetic field and threw her out the window. When the window shattered, the water poured out behind her, accelerating her descent to Titans Island and taking the warring Beast Girl and Aquamarine with her.

"Bad idea, girly," Americommando sneered and leaped up into a vicious strike that laid the partly demonic telekinetic low. In return, Americommando was struck down by Phoebus and Inferno, who had steamed themselves dry. Americommando generated a photon shield to block both pyromancers' fire attacks, only for Phoebus to suddenly emerge behind Americommando, who whirled to block Phoebus's punch with his shield. He proceeded to bash Phoebus with that shield and slice at him with that same shield. Disoriented by the prior bashing, Phoebus was unable to evade the slice in time and blood flowed from the wound in his chest, a wound that he cauterized and avenged via a kick to Americommando's unguarded side.

Hermes began to attack the Titans at super-speed, only to be halted by a kick from Mercury. The strawberry blond was quick to recover and skidded into an attack on Mercury, who blocked his punch and retaliated with a punch of his own. Hermes was floored quite brutally by the punch, but Mercury pressed the attack with a hyper-fast flurry of punches and kicks. Hermes blocked as many as he could, but Mercury seemed to be operating on a higher level as far as speed was concerned. Even when Solarflare joined Hermes in the assault, Mercury was able to fight them both.

Bladefire was now fighting Nightside. The dark girl was a fierce opponent, reacting as though she was several steps ahead of him. He blocked a palm thrust from her, only to be felled by a knee jab to the stomach. Nightside slammed her elbow into his spine, but he planted himself on his hands and threw his legs upward into a kick. Nightside blocked his kick and chopped him in the back of the knees, knocking him down. She brought her foot down to stomp him, but he grabbed it and used it to flip her. Nightside flipped gracefully, only to be caught in the stomach by a kick from Bladefire in mid-flip.

Nightstar burst free of Ultraviolet's energy lasso and whirled to fire an optic blast at her. While Ultraviolet managed to deflect it with her bracelets, the blast seared her wrists in spite of the bracelets. She rubbed those wrists in shock, wondering just how Nightstar had gotten off such a strong blast.

"Shocked?" Nightstar asked. "Tamaraneans are a race of sun drinkers. The energy we absorb from the sun is ultraviolet radiation. Your lasso is shaped from ultraviolet light. Do the math." The expression on Ultraviolet's face was utterly priceless and it made Nightstar smirk.

Nightstar flew at Ultraviolet with superhuman speed and impacted against her with a hard punch. Ultraviolet attempted to retaliate with a punch of her own, but Nightstar caught it and squeezed her fist. Ultraviolet attempted to pry Nightstar's hand off her fist, but Nightstar's grip was too strong, so she threw her other fist at Nightstar's face. Nightstar dipped backwards to avoid the punch and swung her legs up to kick Ultraviolet in the stomach. Ultraviolet flew into the wall, only to kick off it and attack Nightstar, who slapped her blow aside and knocked her into and through another wall.

Americommando fired his photon generator at Nightstar, who cut the blast in half with a chop. She came down on him with a flying kick that he blocked by generating a photon shield. She simply spun on that photon shield and pirouetted into a kick to his masked face. She flipped off his shield and kicked him again. On the third kick, he caught her ankle and twisted, but she twisted with him and swung her free leg into a kick to his head, twisting his neck. Americommando simply twisted his neck back into place and glared balefully at her.

"You little whore!" he roared, attacking her viciously.

Meanwhile, Lady Liberty was dodging Inferno's and Phoebus's fireballs and retaliating with energy blasts from her torch. Inferno created a heat shield to block her energy blasts and Phoebus sped toward Lady Liberty to knock the torch out of her hands. She attempted to blast him with her torch, but he was moving so swiftly that he was evading her blasts. With a flaming hand, he knocked the torch out of her hand, singing said hand in the process.

"Say goodnight," Phoebus snarled and punched her hard enough to knock her unconscious.

"You didn't hit her too hard, did you?" Inferno asked.

"I'm not quite the merciless fiend you seem to have mistaken me for," Phoebus replied with grim sarcasm.

"Titans Tower, Code 777," the two pyromancers heard Nightstar spit out. "Delay by 30 seconds."

"That's the self-destruct code!" Bladefire yelled. "Nightstar, what are you doing?"

"This way, our Tower's technology won't be used by our enemies," Nightstar replied harshly. "Samara, teleport us out. Just us."

"Are you serious?" Samara asked.

"Dead serious," Nightstar replied. "Get us out now."

The Titans Tower mainframe continued its grim countdown. _"10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . ."_

"Damn you," Samara whispered just before enveloping the Titans, Phoebus, and Scarlet Archer in her aura and shunting them all outside the Tower.

"_3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Self-destruct commence."_

* * *

That night, any citizen of Jump City who looked outside their windows would see rubble and flame where the T-shaped structure that had loomed over them for almost thirty years once stood. Some would be shocked. Others would be horrified. A number would be savagely relieved, having by now considered the Titans as much of a menace to their safety as the villains they fought. However they looked at it, they could all agree on one thing: It was the end of something.

* * *

End Notes: Pretty gnarly ending, huh? All right, some things need to be said here.

First, J did not get killed. Before Mercury arrived, the Titans and Scarlet Archer knew what was about to go down and got J the hell out of there. Assume he is somewhere relatively safe outside Titans Tower right now.

Second, Americommando is based on an old character from DC Comics' Golden Age, but his interpretation here is inspired by Kingdom Come's version of him. Lady Liberty, Miss America, and Silent Majority are United States-themed DC Comics heroes that I've appropriated and altered for use in this story. Spin Doctor is a speedster in DC Comics canon, but in my version, his speed comes from a different source than in the comics, as you can tell.

Third, the heroes you saw at the beginning of this chapter are members of the Justice Society. In case you don't know who the Justice Society is, it's the precursor to the Justice League. In DC Comics canon, their origins were in World War II, but in my canon, their origins were in the Vietnam War. Jenny Quick is an OC, first seen in the "Quicksilver" arc and the daughter of Jesse Chambers (formerly known as Jesse Quick and currently known as Liberty Belle in DC Comics canon), but the other characters are canon to DC.

Fourth, as for Nightstar blowing up Titans Tower with Infinity, Inc. and S.H.A.D.E. agents still in there, you'll see the ramifications of that in the next chapter. Why did she do it? You'll see next chapter, too. Speaking of next chapter, if you think things can't get any worse, you'd be quite wrong.

In the meantime, be kind and leave me a review.


	46. Justice: Stained

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 6: "Stained"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans and various other DCU properties belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me. The only profit I make from writing this is the satisfaction of knowing that people have read it.

Author's note: In case you thought things couldn't get any worse for the Titans and the hero community at large, you're wrong. Things get worse here. To see how much worse they get, read on.

* * *

Lena Luthor was having the most wonderful night of her life. The Justice League was reduced to submitting to government control to repair their damaged reputation and the Teen Titans were now rogues. She had anticipated the League's acquiescence; they had always been concerned with putting on a trustworthy public front. She had also anticipated the Titans' defiance; teenagers were never good at submitting to authority.

It was a shame about Infinity, Inc., though. They'd been rather good pawns to manipulate, to present to the public as genuine heroes more concerned with the public good than their own aggrandizement. Of course, with their deaths, it would be easy to paint them as martyrs for the Watchmen Act. The fact that it had been the Titans who killed them would only serve to drive the nail even deeper into the coffin of their reputations.

At the moment, she was on the phone with Slade as she walked toward her office. "Is the next phase of the plan ready to begin?" she asked him.

"_It is,"_ Slade replied. _"What about on your end? The Justice League?"_

"Leave them to me," Lena answered. "I'll meet with you soon." She closed her cell phone, ending the communication.

When she entered her office, she saw a pair of long leather-clad legs resting on her desk. She looked more closely and saw that those legs were attached to a leather-clad body that was currently lounging on her leather chair. The body was female, with sensual curves fitting snugly inside a leather suit. A leather duster hung off her shoulders, her arms outside it and her hands propping up her head. Now that Lena looked more closely, the woman distinctly lacked a face . . . literally, but her head had long black hair descending in glossy waves.

"Intrigue," Lena spoke. "What brings you here?"

"I cracked a lot of codes and skulls to make my way here," Intrigue replied. "I know it was you who supplied the D.E.O. with the nanotechnology required to turn eight million innocent people into cybernetic metahuman-killers. I know you've been engineering metahumans for certain factions of the U.S. government as well as various foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations, including dictatorships and terrorist groups. But hey, whoever can pay, right?"

Lena did not miss the acid sarcasm of Intrigue's last sentence. "Is that all?" she asked contemptuously.

"No, that is _not_ all," Intrigue answered just as contemptuously. "You created Infinity, Inc. out of juvenile delinquents, then gave them new names and backgrounds to cover up their criminal pasts. Of course, several Infinitors have continued their criminality in secret, but your control over the press is so great that you can keep it from going public. Speaking of media manipulation, I know you were the one who put out that edited video of Richard Snow's death and the one who exposed Batman's covert operatives. I also know that you were one of the founders of the think tank that 'suggested' the Watchmen Act to Congress."

"Your point?" Lena inquired pointedly.

"My point is that I know your endgame and that is complete control," Intrigue responded. "That's why your father never liked metahumans and why you don't like metahumans; they're a dangerous variable in your carefully worked-out equation of dominance. That's why you engineered events so that metahumans would be forced under government control. Of course, since many within the government owe their continued viability as politicians to you, they're really under your control. The ones that don't knuckle under will end up disgraced and eliminated, like what's already happened to a number of metahuman heroes. And that's only the beginning."

"You're right," Lena said. "It is just the beginning. You see, the United States is going to be a shining example of how metahuman power can be harnessed for the good of normal humans. The world will soon follow suit."

"And many of the world's metahumans will have been created by you," Intrigue added.

"Yes," Lena confirmed. "I see little wrong in that. Metahumans, when controlled by and responsive to normal humans, are not quite as much a menace as otherwise. At least this way, they can be contained if they cause too much trouble."

Intrigue removed her legs from the desk and stood on her feet. She reached into her coat and removed a length of garrote. "A world controlled by you is not a world I want to see," she said. "Therefore, it is a necessity that you die." She moved around the desk, walking toward Lena with a calm deliberateness that would have frightened lesser beings. Lena just looked upon the seemingly faceless woman with a supreme lack of fear on her face . . . and then she made her move.

A brutal smack to the jaw laid Intrigue low. Intrigue rolled with the blow and leaped to her feet, lunging at Lena with the garrote. Lena easily evaded Intrigue's charge and grabbed her outstretched arm, twisting it behind her back and pinning her to the ground. Intrigue bucked underneath Lena, attempting to break free, but Lena's grip was too powerful, especially when supported by the knee in the seemingly faceless woman's back.

"Foolish faceless girl," Lena mocked. "You think you know what I have planned, but you've only glimpsed it. There is so much more to what I have in mind than you know, but you won't get to see it."

"You've enhanced yourself, haven't you?" Intrigue groaned in realization.

"I injected myself with nanoprobes containing the OMAC programming," Lena explained as her skin took on a silvery coating. "This way, I can unleash the OMACs whenever I want . . ." She smirked with blue-tinged silver lips. "Such as now. Upon the Teen Titans who are led by your precious Nightstar." Her eyes glowed a malevolent white-gold.

* * *

At that moment, the Teen Titans were hidden inside a grotto. The grotto belonged to Nightstar and it was a secret base for her, a Batcave of her own. It was equipped with much of the same technology as in Titans Tower, only scaled down to fit the grotto. As a result, it couldn't do as much as the Titans Tower tech could, but it would have to suffice in light of the fact that Titans Tower no longer existed.

"What was the point in destroying Titans Tower with registered metahumans inside?" Samara asked. "Were you trying to kill them?"

"They would have killed us," Nightstar replied tonelessly. "Don't you get it? The public doesn't consider us heroes anymore. To them, we're as much of a threat as people like Tartarus."

"That doesn't mean we start acting like villains," Samara insisted. "Destroying Titans Tower with registered metahumans inside is not going to win us back the trust of the public. If anything, it'll solidify their concept of us as a danger to them."

"Let's check out the news," Phoebus said, pressing a button on the computer console. Instantly, the monitor flickered to life and showed a NewsNet web bulletin.

"_Just recently tonight, a monument of Jump City was destroyed. That monument was Titans Tower. The circumstances of its destruction involve an attempt by the rogue Teen Titans to escape apprehension at the hands of Infinity, Inc., who has managed to survive the Titans' cowardly escape effort. They could not be reached for comment, but their press agent stated that it was only the efforts of the speedster Hermes that ensured Infinity, Inc.'s survival. In other news, Steel City's Teen Titans have recently agreed to register under the Watchmen Act, but they have publicly expressed disagreement with the Act. Lian Harper, alias Red Hood and the leader of Titans East, had this to say."_

The monitor cut to an image of Red Hood, who had her hood down and her sunglasses off. _"This isn't the right way to handle this. Mistakes and tragedies have occurred, but I can't believe that these would outweigh the good we've done to the extent that we have to submit ourselves to governmental oversight. The fact that everyone' s rushing to condemn us without hearing us out isn't exactly fair, either."_

The monitor cut back to the reporter, one Bethany Snow. _"If she thinks the Watchmen Act is so unfair, why did the Titans East register in the first place? They'd be better suited as renegades like their West Coast counterparts with an attitude like that."_

"So this is what we're reduced to," Scarlet Archer mused sadly. "The only way we can function as heroes is if we submit ourselves to a government that would prefer us not to exist."

"Hermes must be faster than I gave him credit for, to be able to save his teammates like that," Mercury commented.

Before any further commentary could be made, a laser cutter could be heard. It pierced the titanium-lead alloy shielding the grotto and punctured the roof of stalactites. The laser cutter made a circular hole in the roof of the grotto and in came several OMACs.

"_Quandary: Duplicate metahuman signatures detected. Duplicate signatures are identified as Jeremiah Crockett, alias Inferno."_

"Is something wrong with that satellite controlling them?" Scarlet Archer asked. "How can there be two Infernos?"

"I'll explain later," Phoebus replied. "Right now . . ." His arms wreathed themselves in flame and he projected that flame at the OMACs. One retaliated by shooting a concentrated burst of flame-retardant gas at Phoebus, snuffing out his flames. "Son of a bitch."

"Be careful," Bladefire advised. "There are innocent human beings in there."

Beast Girl mentally ripped out sections of rock from the grotto floor and threw them at the OMACs, who simply projected blades and sliced through them. Undaunted, Beast Girl lunged at the OMACs as a wolf-girl and struck one of them. The others fired lasers at her, but she dodged them with animalistic swiftness and retaliated by slicing at them with earth energy-charged claws. The OMACs swiftly recovered from her slices and retaliated by slicing at her with their blades.

Scarlet Archer launched an EMP arrow at the OMACs, one of whom catching it. She pressed a button hidden behind her back and the arrowhead went off, triggering the electromagnetic pulse. The pulse enveloped all the OMACs and to the surprise of the Titans, the OMACs' cybernetic armor cracked and peeled off, revealing dazed and confused human beings underneath.

"What are we doing here?" one of the former OMACs asked.

"We'd better get them out of here," Nightstar said. To the former OMACs, "It's ok. You're going to be ok."

"The Titans?" another former OMAC asked.

"Yeah," Nightstar replied.

Samara generated a shadowy portal. "The portal will respond to your individual wills and send you back to your homes."

"Are you sure?" a former OMAC asked.

"Yeah, what if it sends us somewhere else?" another asked. "Like some scary other dimension?"

"It won't," Samara replied. "The portal will take you all home. You just have to trust me and step through it."

"Trust you?" a former OMAC asked. "How can we do that? After everything that's happened over this week, how can we do that?"

"Trust is never an easy thing to give," Samara admitted grimly. "But you have to believe me when I say I don't mean any harm to come to you."

"I think . . . I believe you," one former OMAC said slightly hesitantly. To prove it, he stepped through the portal. One by one, the other former OMACs followed.

"And now for that explanation you said you were going to give," Samara answered, turning to Phoebus. "The OMACs were talking about duplicate signatures when they intruded on us, signatures that were both identified as Inferno. I sensed something vaguely familiar about you when we first met. Now . . . who are you?"

Phoebus removed his mask, revealing a face that greatly resembled Inferno's, only older and with a scar extending from the corner of his eye to just an inch or so above the corner of his lips. His eyes held an expression of melancholy and bitter fury mixed into one. When he looked at her, that expression took on a tinge of sad love.

"How?" Samara asked, looking into Phoebus's face.

Mercury looked between Inferno and Phoebus, confused. "What the hell's going on here?"

"My name is Jeremiah Crockett, though you know me very well in this time," Phoebus replied. "I'm from the future. Five years in the future, to be precise. I'm here because the events that are happening now were set in motion by Lena Luthor and the end result was a world in which state-controlled metahumans were the only ones allowed to operate as crime-fighters. It got worse after Jump City was destroyed and the Battle of Metropolis . . . so many people died in both that it convinced the public to give even greater power to the government to track and investigate metahumans. This time, anybody who was found to have special abilities was forced to register with the government and in many cases, they were drafted into special task forces that enforced the American global agenda. Anyone who tried to resist was simply never seen again . . . if they were caught."

"How did you get here?" Nightstar asked.

"Warp," Phoebus replied. "He was killed in one of our later fights. I took his technology off his corpse and was able to reverse-engineer it into a time machine. I came back here in the hopes of stopping this, but it seems that I'm almost too late."

"What you just told us the future was like sounds a lot like what Intrigue was trying to warn people about over the past week," Bladefire said.

"In my time, she thought she could stop it by killing Lena Luthor," Phoebus explained. "It didn't work. Lena killed her and then commandeered her network to use it against us."

"Then we have to find her and stop her from going after Lena," Nightstar said.

"Too late for that," Phoebus answered. "She's already gone after her. The only thing we can do now is rescue her from Lena."

"We have to get out of here, anyway," Nightstar said. "This isn't a safe place for us anymore. If the OMACs could find us, who knows who else could?"

* * *

In the Society's base, Slade had gathered Tartarus together. The six young men and women stood about, awaiting Slade's orders. Fray was casually loitering in the room, while Gemini was gazing at her finger-blades. Hex was filing her nails disinterestedly, while Black Flash's posture suggested she was aching to do some violence. Dr. Blaze casually juggled several fireballs and Ravager gazed intently at her father.

"I have an assignment for you," Slade said. "You're to make a delivery to Jump City tonight."

"What is that delivery?" Ravager asked.

"A living bomb," Slade replied. "It has no real sentience, but it is aware. The initial explosion will inflict tremendous damage upon the city, but that's not all. The living bomb is composed of toxins that will also be unleashed upon the initial explosion, so anyone who survives will be poisoned."

Ravager's expression was one of utter horror. "What? We're going to do _what?_"

"You heard me, Ravager," Slade replied. "We're going to drop the living bomb in Jump City's center."

"Why?" Ravager asked.

"To teach the Titans a lesson," Slade answered. "To make them realize that there is nowhere they can truly call home."

"That's going too far!" Ravager screamed. "I won't let you!" She drew her swords but Gemini grabbed Ravager with her outstretched arms and wrapped them around her, binding the assassin's arms to her sides. Ravager struggled fiercely in her bonds, but Gemini's grip was too strong.

"Why the reluctance, dear child?" Slade asked. He reached out and grasped her by her chin. "Unless you have more of an attachment to the Teen Titans than I thought. Yes, that's it, isn't it? I wonder, just which Titan is it that has divided your loyalties so? Is it Samara? Or is it one of Grayson's brats? If so, which one? Nightstar . . . or is it Bladefire?" He smirked under his mask. "Oh, don't think I don't know, Rose. I've known all about that facet of your relationship with him for some time; I simply allowed it because I believed I could subvert the boy for my own purposes. Now that I know where your real loyalties lie, you're no longer useful to me." He turned to Gemini. "Put Ravager in a holding cell and make the delivery."

"Will do," Gemini responded.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Teen Titans, along with Scarlet Archer and Phoebus, had gone to Lena's headquarters in Metropolis to find Intrigue. Samara had cast a spell on them that would make them temporarily invisible to remote viewing, thus enabling them to evade Lena Luthor's surveillance equipment. They searched the lower levels of LexCorp's headquarters, figuring they'd find Intrigue being held there. On their way, they found interference from Lena's security detail, which was clad in black-and-white armor and all pointing laser rifles at the heroes.

Nightstar extended energy wire and used it to slice apart several security officers' guns. The others opened fire on the heroes, Mercury dodging with an ease that was almost frightening. It was as though even light was moving too slowly to catch up with him. Beside him, Beast Girl became a tigress and lunged at the security officers, slicing their guns out of their hands and slicing their armor. Bladefire cut through their weapons with his energy blade and Inferno and Phoebus literally fired upon the security officers. Samara telekinetically disarmed more security officers, as Scarlet Archer fired armor-piercing arrows at the security officers.

Nightstar kept moving, relying on the others to hold off the security officers. As she flew, she found more and more security officers in wait for them, but she disabled them with ferocious effortlessness. When she was next halted, it was by glowing vines that wrapped around her body and held her fast. She struggled valiantly in the grip of the vines, but they simply tightened around her body.

Out of the shadows stepped several metahumans. One was a green-haired girl garbed in a white leotard with a symbol resembling green leaves growing out of a circle. Another was a dark-haired girl garbed in a dark red suit with a yellow lightning motif. A third was a man-shaped figure in what seemed to be a more form-fitting Hazmat suit. The fourth was a boy with metallic silver skin and hair and an atom symbol on the front of his sleeveless suit.

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," the silver boy spoke. "I'm Colonel Atom. The girl who has you bound and helpless is Chlorophyll. The one in the Hazmat suit is Human Bomb and our girl in red is Trajectory."

"Colonel Atom," Nightstar hissed. "You mean they repeated the Captain Atom project with teenagers?"

"Yes," Colonel Atom replied. "Specifically, military school brats who just wouldn't behave themselves. S.H.A.D.E. found a use for us, but I was the only one strong enough to survive."

"By the way . . ." Nightstar said. "You're only half right about me. I'm bound . . . but not helpless." She proceeded to prove it by tearing herself free of Chlorophyll's glowing vines and lashing out with her energy wire, slicing through Colonel Atom's silver skin. Colonel Atom hissed and pressed his hand against his glowing wounds, forcing them to heal.

"How did you do that?" Colonel Atom asked.

"Plants take in energy from the sun," Nightstar replied. "What I did was absorb the solar energy in Chlorophyll's vines, increasing my own strength."

Trajectory vanished from sight and reappeared with her foot embedded in Nightstar's stomach. The blow had come so quickly that it caught the Tamaranean hybrid by surprise, knocking the breath out of her. Trajectory vanished again, reappearing with a chop to the back of Nightstar's neck. The red-clad girl disappeared once more, and a series of vicious invisible blows battered Nightstar.

_A speedster,_ Nightstar thought. _Screw me._

Nightstar let off an energy blast from her eyes, but Trajectory dodged it with brutal ease. Trajectory seemed to be vanishing and reappearing all around Nightstar, but Nightstar knew that the other girl was simply moving too fast to be seen except intermittently, even by her sight. Nightstar lifted herself into the air and extended her energy, the glowing purple wire flying everywhere. Trajectory tripped over the wire, but rolled back onto her feet. Before she could shift into hyper-speed again, Nightstar was on her with fierce punches and kicks. Trajectory attempted to speed up again, but Nightstar was beating her too furiously for her to do so.

The one known as Human Bomb calmly ripped off a piece of his fingernail and flicked it at Nightstar. The resulting explosion knocked both her and Trajectory into a nearby wall. Trajectory vibrated to save herself from going splat, only to detonate the wall she was vibrating through. As for Nightstar, she simply bounced off the wall and rolled onto the floor.

"Now I know why they call you the Human Bomb," Nightstar groaned. She rolled onto her back and turned to the hole Trajectory had made in the wall. Her eyes widened when she saw what was on the other side of that hole. Specifically, it was Intrigue strapped down on a table with nodes attached to her forehead and those nodes connected to a brainwave-monitoring machine, a machine that apparently doubled as a torture device given Intrigue's haggard state.

With a shout of fury, Nightstar flew through the hole to get to Intrigue, only to be struck by an energy blast from Colonel Atom. Nightstar was quick to recover and retaliate with an optic blast aimed for Colonel Atom. Colonel Atom dodged the blast and flew at Nightstar, slamming into her and pinning her to the far wall. Nightstar struggled mightily, but Colonel Atom seemed to be the stronger of the two, given the one-handed ease with which he held her. He charged his other fist full of atomic energy and punched her, sending her through the wall. Nightstar rose from her prostrate position and wiped the blood off her lip.

Colonel Atom sped toward Nightstar, but Nightstar dodged his attack and kicked him hard in the face. Colonel Atom snarled and charged her again, only for her to dodge and slide low, spinning herself upward into a kick that caught the metal-skinned teenager in the chin. Colonel Atom flipped back and blasted her with atomic force, but she blocked the blast with her bracers. She flipped into the air and lashed out with her energy whip, striking the machine being used to torture Intrigue. The seemingly faceless woman's head lolled to one side, a sign of mental exhaustion. Nightstar plucked the nodes off the other woman's forehead and scooped her up in her arms.

"You're not leaving with that faceless bitch," Colonel Atom stated.

"Watch me," Nightstar retorted and proceeded to fly as fast as she could without killing Intrigue. Colonel Atom, Chlorophyll, and Trajectory pursued both young women. As she flew, Nightstar spotted her teammates, Scarlet Archer, and Phoebus, who were still battling the security officers. "I've got Intrigue! Let's go!"

"Not so fast," Colonel Atom declared, firing an atomic blast at Nightstar. To the surprise of everyone present, the blast slowed to a crawl and petered out long before it could hit Nightstar. "What the hell was that?"

"Me," Mercury replied. "I drained the kinetic energy from your blast." He turned to Trajectory. "As for you . . ." He leeched the speed from the red-clad girl. "Now you can't run."

Trajectory attempted to attack Mercury at super-speed, only to realize that her speed was gone. Her eyes widened in shock just before Mercury disabled her with a swift roundhouse kick. Human Bomb charged at Mercury, intending to detonate him by touching him, but Mercury drained the kinetic energy from the would-be explosion. Mercury struck him with a burst of the same kinetic energy that he'd drained from him, knocking him down and out.

"Samara, take us out," Bladefire ordered.

"Are we going to blow this place up, too?" Samara asked sardonically.

"I don't see why not," Phoebus replied grimly. "Lena Luthor deserves to burn more than anyone else I could think of. Her and Slade."

"We're not supposed to kill," Bladefire stated.

"Tell that to your sister," Samara retorted bitingly.

"We don't have time for this," Nightstar hissed. "Just teleport us to Batman's cave. He'll have medical equipment there."

* * *

Samara sighed bitterly and did as Nightstar ordered, teleporting the Titans, Scarlet Archer, and Phoebus to the Batcave. The first thing that could be seen was the giant computer monitor, surrounded by smaller screens. In the distance, but not a very far distance, was a sleek, tank-like black vehicle. Further away were trophies from the various villains Bruce Wayne's Batman had defeated over the years. Sitting at the computer monitor was Bruce Wayne himself.

"What brings you here?" the aged man asked.

"Intrigue needs medical help," Nightstar replied. "And we can't go to the hospital or the Titans East or the Justice League because we'll be arrested."

"Take her to the infirmary," Bruce answered.

Nightstar proceeded to do exactly that. She carefully carried Intrigue to the infirmary area of the cave and gently laid her on the cot. She hung up Intrigue's coat next to her. She was rather surprised when Intrigue grabbed her hand.

"In the coat . . . aerosol spray," Intrigue uttered.

Nightstar looked around in the pockets of Intrigue's coat and found a small pressurized spray can. She pulled out the can and sprayed its contents at Intrigue's literally blank face. Once she was sure enough had been sprayed, she stopped and peeled Intrigue's blank face off, revealing darkly beautiful yet bruised Italian features.

"Lucia . . ." she murmured gently. "What did they do to you?"

"Neurological shocks," Intrigue replied. "Tried to make me talk. Gave them nothing."

"What were you doing in LexCorp?" Nightstar asked.

"Was going to kill Lena Luthor," Intrigue answered. "Done so much evil, caused so much misery, didn't deserve to live. Wasn't expecting . . . injected herself with nanites, OMAC programming in them. Stronger than me, controls the OMACs . . ."

"That explains the bruises," Nightstar mused. "And if she controls the OMACs . . ."

"Then she can have you killed at any time she wants," Intrigue finished grimly.

"Nightstar," Bladefire spoke, hovering nearby. "Grandpa Bruce wants to see you."

"Sure," Nightstar answered. "Rest, Lucia." She gently kissed Intrigue on the forehead and stood up to follow Bladefire, who took her to Bruce. Bruce sat the computer monitor, staring intently at a satellite in space. "Is that the satellite controlling the OMACs?"

"Yes," Bruce replied. "Bladefire told me all about what Intrigue revealed to Detective Perez."

"I still can't believe that all this is happening," Nightstar uttered.

"Believe it," Samara answered grimly. "Humans who are accustomed to having power don't like the idea of being without that power. This is what they do to keep it."

"How do we shut down that satellite?" Inferno asked.

"The satellite's not the only thing we need to worry about," Nightstar replied. "Lena's injected herself with OMAC nanoprobes. She's using them to duplicate the functions of the OMAC satellite, controlling the OMACs and tracking metahumans."

"I was able to shut down the OMACs using an EMP to disable their programming," Scarlet Archer suggested. "We could do the same to the satellite."

"An excellent idea except for the fact that the satellite will probably detect us," Phoebus cut in.

"Then we're going to need stealth technology that'll render you immune to technological surveillance," Bruce said. "Technology like what Mr. Terrific and his son use in their costumes." Before he could elaborate, the console suddenly blinked to indicate an incoming NewsNet bulletin. Bruce pressed the button, shifting the computer screen to the NewsNet bulletin.

"_Tragedy abounds on both the East Coast and the West Coast,"_ Bethany Snow spoke. _"On the East Coast, a gene therapy lab in Metropolis owned by philanthropist Lena Luthor was destroyed by what appeared to be a laser beam fired from space. On the West Coast, a bomb of some kind was dropped into the center of Jump City, the home base of rogue metahuman vigilantes the Teen Titans. The devastation in Jump City is estimated to have claimed at least one hundred thousand lives. In Metropolis, the destruction of the lab killed the scientists and patients inside and the resulting shockwaves caused many injuries and deaths within a five-block radius of the lab. There is no apparent cause to these tragedies, no seeming method to this madness . . ."_ As Snow spoke, the images of the destruction flitted about, shocking and horrifying everyone present.

"We . . . we have to go back," Nightstar uttered, barely able to find her voice.

"A noble sentiment, but highly dangerous," Bruce responded. "The explosive residue in Jump City resembles that from toxic chemicals. There's only one thing I know that's capable of leaving such residue after a blast like that and that's a living bomb."

"It doesn't matter," Nightstar said. "We have to save as many people as we can, as are left . . ."

"I'll cast a protection spell on us," Samara said. "The toxins won't touch us."

"Then go," Bruce answered. "But be careful. If the police see you, they're more likely to arrest you than help you."

"It doesn't matter," Nightstar repeated. "We have to go. We're the Titans . . . and Titans don't hide from the people they're supposed to protect."

* * *

End Notes: The metahumans that appear as antagonists during the Titans' rescue of Intrigue were all based on metahumans that appeared in DC Comics' recent canon. Chlorophyll is a renamed "new Jade" from 52 #29; Colonel Atom is a gender-bent version of Bombshell (female teenage Captain Atom); and Human Bomb and Trajectory are based on the characters that appear in Crisis Aftermath: The Battle for Blüdhaven and 52 (#9, #17, and #21), respectively.

There you go. The next chapter will focus on the Titans trying to save lives in Jump City and the Justice League trying to help out in Metropolis, as well as both teams and other heroes coming together to take down the OMAC satellite. Plus, there's a final showdown with the ever-so-villainous Society and after that . . . well, after that is pretty much the end of Teen Titans: Future Storm, an epilogue and possible spin-offs and sequels excepted. Anyway, how about letting me know what you think of this latest installment in "The Melancholy of the Teen Titans"?


	47. Justice: Reload

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Arc 6: "Justice"

Chapter 7: "Reload"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans and all other DCU characters, except for those of my invention, do not belong to me. They belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers.

Author's note: I've really put the Titans through hell, haven't I? I've taken away their reputations, their home, and now their city. What else can I do to make them suffer? Not that much now, as they've had enough and they're not going to take it anymore. They're going to strike back and make those that ruined their lives pay. See "The Titans Strike Back" unfold.

* * *

Jump City was once a proud Southern Californian metropolis of roughly six million residents. Its beaches were beautiful and its spires were a sight to behold. It was the home of the most famous technology firms. Elevated streets created multiple levels to this shining beacon of modernity. It was also the home of the Teen Titans, before they were hounded out by a hostile public and government. And now . . . now its center was a smoldering ruin, chemical fires blazing around it.

The six Titans materialized inside their ruined metropolis. Despite the protection spell Samara had cast on them, Inferno couldn't help but cough. Neither could Mercury.

"Who did this?" Nightstar asked. "_Who the hell did this?_"

"It no longer matters," Bladefire replied grimly. "What matters is saving the people of this city. Our city. Let's go."

The Titans split off, either flying or running, to find survivors. Mercury ran up the façade of an apartment complex and dematerialized inside. He ran into the collapsing structure. "Hello!" he shouted. "If anyone's in here, I'll get you out!"

"Help!" someone coughed out.

Mercury sped over in the direction of the voice and used a pulse of kinetic energy to knock the table away. That revealed a dust-covered man, who had been protectively covering his young son. Mercury helped them up and sped them out of the apartment and away from the city, then ran back inside to find more survivors.

Beast Girl ran as a cheetah-girl, accelerating to 65 mph, to find other survivors. As she ran, she was confronted by images of death and devastation where she passed. It made her want to throw up. Not for the first time, she wondered how people could be so evil. Demons were one thing, but human beings were something else.

Samara clutched her head and gritted her teeth. She could feel them all, the people who had survived that initial blast and the people who hadn't. She could feel their souls screaming in horror that this atrocity had happened to them. She could feel them begging some form of divine being for answers as to why this had happened and who could have done it.

Inferno attempted to absorb the flames. He knew he would exhaust the capabilities of his containment suit and probably poison himself in the process, but he had to try. If he let those flames spread, the entire city would be destroyed. He gritted his teeth in pain as he drew the noxious chemical fires into himself. He felt the suit tearing from the pressure of containing all of that flame, but he wasn't ready to give up yet. Not with so many dead, not with so many that still might die if he didn't do this . . .

Nightstar and Bladefire flew through the air, finding and evacuating as many people from the city as they could. Within that same air, they spotted Solarflare, Ultraviolet, and Garnet evacuating people as well. Ultraviolet noticed the Grayson twins first and sneered.

"I'm surprised you'd come back after trying to kill us," she remarked.

Nightstar let out a shrill scream of rage and flew at Ultraviolet, ready to take her head off, but Bladefire and Solarflare interposed themselves between the two girls. "This isn't the time, Nightstar," Bladefire said.

"We have nothing to gain by antagonizing the Titans," Solarflare said to Ultraviolet. "Right now, we're doing the same thing, which is saving these people. Waste the bitch after we're done with that."

"Just remember who defeated whom," Bladefire shot back.

"We don't have time for a pissing contest," Garnet snapped, continuing to evacuate residents from the devastated Jump City.

"She's right," Bladefire admitted reluctantly, returning to his and Nightstar's original purpose, which was to save as many lives as possible.

Inferno felt himself about to reach his limit. The noxious flames were making him sick and there was only so much he could absorb. He pushed himself to soak up more of the toxic fire, but just as he thought he was ready to burst, a sudden tidal surge washed out the flames.

"What the –?" he wondered.

"Thank me later!" Aquamarine shouted, merged with a tidal wave.

Hermes and Mercury were both rescuing and evacuating residents at super-speed, although they had managed to turn even that into a pissing contest. Considering both of them had air friction-reducing auras which protection extended to whatever or whoever they touched, they didn't have to worry about their passengers burning up. Less than purely heroic, but Hermes wasn't exactly a pure hero and Mercury didn't like the idea of being one-upped by someone like that. Whatever the underlying motivations, the Titans and Infinity, Inc. were able to work together to successfully evacuate the survivors from the ruined Jump City.

"Now . . . now we settle this!" Solarflare yelled, flying at Nightstar and Bladefire. Nightstar viciously smacked him down the street and he bounced off the street before rolling. Ultraviolet went to attack her, but Nightstar blocked the strike and grabbed her arm, twisting it behind the Wonder Woman-imitator's back. Ultraviolet swung her other arm at Nightstar, but Nightstar grabbed it and pinned it to her front. Ultraviolet finally stamped Nightstar's foot and used the loosening of Nightstar's grip to break free and elbow her hard enough to knock her to the ground.

"As usual, you revert to the thugs you really are," Samara spat contemptuously.

"Shut up, you hell-bitch whore!" Hermes yelled, attacking her at super-speed. Inferno and Mercury both attacked him at superhuman speed, only for Inferno to be knocked out of commission by Aquamarine's water. Mercury was left to take on Hermes on his own, but that wouldn't be a problem for Mercury. Hermes was fast, all right, but Mercury was even faster.

Inferno heated up again to steam off the water Aquamarine had thrown at him. He shot a stream of flame at Aquamarine, who drowned it with a tidal blast. Inferno shot into the air to avoid that tidal blast and came back down as a veritable firestorm. Aquamarine screamed as the intense heat from the flames evaporated her water.

Beast Girl fought Nightside as a cheetah-girl, relying on her chosen animal component's speed to keep herself ahead of Nightside. Unfortunately for her, Nightside was just as fast and seemingly able to stay five steps ahead of her. Nightside withdrew a small rod and extended it into a full-sized quarterstaff, slamming it into Beast Girl's side with superhuman force. Beast Girl rolled with the slam and into a kick that Nightside unfortunately blocked, grabbing Beast Girl's ankle and twisting the geomorphic shape-shifter into the air.

* * *

In Metropolis, Green Lantern was hard at work aiding those caught in the shockwaves from the blast. Emerald constructs from both her ring and her innate powers gently lifted civilians to safety. Batman and Scarlet Archer were helping as well, airlifting the injured to hospitals. Static was gently disassembling automobile wreckage with his electromagnetic powers to free the people trapped inside. Superman and Wonder Woman were carrying civilians to shelters and hospitals, and the Flash was speeding civilians to those same shelters and hospitals.

The Justice Society had arrived to help as well. Kal-El aided his protégé and successor in bringing civilians to shelter and hospitals, while Jay Garrick and Jenny Quick aided the Flash in speeding people out of harm's way. Mr. Terrific used his T-spheres to gently levitate civilians to safety, while Starwoman was carrying the injured to hospitals and clinics. Jakeem Thunder summoned his Thunderbolt with an utterance of "So cool" to clean up the damage. Wildcat was aiding the injured and the frightened as well, while Alan Scott was assisting the Green Lantern.

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," Superman commented to Batman.

"You're my friend, Kon," Batman replied. "Right now, you're being immensely stupid and recklessly optimistic, but you're my friend."

"Thank you," a child said to the Supermen.

"You're welcome," Kon-El answered.

"Hey, wait a minute," someone said. "That laser blast came from space! Right where you League guys have your Watchtower!"

"Yeah!" another person shouted. "You guys fired on Lena Luthor's lab! She was right all along about you metas retarding human progress!"

Various jeers soon followed. "People, that's quite enough," Alan spoke calmly, his clear voice cutting through the din. "There's more to this than what you know, but we are not going to get anywhere by hurling accusations without actual evidence to back those accusations. We understand that you're hurting. We understand that what you've just experienced has been highly traumatic. But we are not your enemies. We are not your destroyers. We simply want to help you."

Unfortunately, his entreaty fell on deaf ears. Beside him, Wildcat gritted his teeth with rage. The ingrates; he'd teach them a thing or two about – Jay gently placed a hand on his shoulder, calming him somewhat.

"Forgive them, for they know not what they do," Jay whispered.

* * *

Back in Jump City, the battle between the Teen Titans and Infinity, Inc. raged through the devastated metropolis. Ultraviolet had grabbed Nightstar by her hair and was now spinning her around. She tossed the Tamaranean hybrid into an already-wrecked car, the car crumpling around her. Nightstar tore herself free from the automobile and fired an optic blast at Ultraviolet, who blocked it with her bracelets. Ultraviolet flew at Nightstar, Nightstar rising to meet her. The two clashed in midair, striking each other furiously with fast punches and hand thrusts.

Mercury and Hermes fought across the city at hyper-speed, each blow shattering the windows within a two-block radius. Hermes grabbed Mercury's arm and used it as leverage to spin him into a throw that sent him flying down several blocks. Hermes sped after him, pursuing him with a series of brutal punches delivered at super-speed. Finally, Mercury landed on the ground, Hermes coming down on him with a fast punch. Mercury, having found himself quite fed up with Hermes, drained the speed from the swift Infinitor and channeled it into a strike that knocked him unconscious.

Nightside was still fighting Beast Girl, only she was using her quarterstaff to keep the shape-shifter at bay. Beast Girl attempted to slice the dark Infinitor, but Nightside rolled out of the way and into a kick to Beast Girl's side. She followed that up with a sweep of her staff to the back of Beast Girl's legs, knocking her down. And all of that was in the space of mere seconds, faster than even Beast Girl's eyes could detect. With that same unnatural speed, Nightside pinned Beast Girl to the asphalt with her staff, which was pressed against Beast Girl's throat. Beast Girl shifted into a snake and wrapped herself around Nightside's staff before lunging at her. Nightside ducked and grabbed Beast Girl by her middle, prompting Beast Girl to wrap herself around Nightside's arm and bite her exposed shoulder, pumping as much venom as she could into the Infinitor's body.

Samara telekinetically levitated wrecked cars and threw them at Garnet, who sliced through them with construct blades. The black-and-red-clad girl flew at Samara with twin construct blades extended from the backs of her hands. Samara blocked Garnet's slashes with telekinetic shields and wrapped her hands in black aura, using them to cut through Garnet's construct blades. Garnet shaped giant shuriken out of her red plasma energy and threw them at Samara, who dodged them. Just as Garnet was about to redouble her assault, a sonic grenade detonated near her, scrambling her concentration and disorienting her.

"Where did that come from?" Samara wondered, holding her own bleeding ears.

"I believe a 'thank you' is in order," a familiar voice answered.

Samara looked up and spotted a very familiar someone. It was a young woman, garbed in armored black leather and gray chain mail-like mesh. The armored leather covered most of her body, the mesh only taking up her shoulders and arms. Black straps wrapped around her shoulders and the mesh also covered her sides and outer thighs. Her knees, shins, and feet were accented with lightweight armor and her hands were covered in short black gloves with black bands wrapped around her forearm. Her face was partly concealed by a bisected orange-and-black mask that came down to her nose, the black side blank and the orange side having a red lens. Twin swords rested on her back and a hint of a smirk could be found on her lips.

"Ravager," Samara spat. "What are you doing here?"

"Making up for past errors," Ravager replied.

Nightstar and Bladefire had come together to battle Ultraviolet and Solarflare, respectively. Solarflare fired a matter-disintegrating optic blast, which Nightstar dodged, only for a section of skyscraper to vanish. Ultraviolet didn't bother with her ultraviolet lasso, since it would only fuel Bladefire's powers; she just flew at him and punched him. Bladefire struck back with a hard two-fisted slam that sent her flying to the ground. Ultraviolet righted herself in midair and rocketed into Bladefire, while Solarflare slammed Nightstar into the ground. Nightstar kicked Solarflare off her and rolled onto her feet, lashing out at him with an energy lariat to restrain him.

Solarflare dodged the lariat and was about to lunge at Nightstar when a blade glowing red projected itself from his stomach. He gasped in horror as blood began to well up in his mouth. He coughed out the blood and fell down in a heap. Standing behind him was Ravager, a red-glowing sword in her hand.

"He'll live," Ravager spoke tersely.

"Ravager!" Nightstar yelled. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Helping you," Ravager replied tersely.

"And why should I believe that?" Nightstar asked.

"You don't have to," Ravager answered. "I don't expect you to."

A blue optic blast sent Ultraviolet crashing to the ground, only to be impaled by Ravager's red-glowing blade before she could hit that ground. Ultraviolet sputtered in pain as Ravager tossed her aside, blood flowing from her wound. Her opponent, Bladefire, landed before Ravager in shock.

"She'll live," Ravager spoke. "I deliberately missed her vitals."

"What are you doing here?" Bladefire asked.

"Like I told your sister, I'm here to help," Ravager replied.

"Why?" Bladefire asked. "And that's assuming I believe you."

At that moment, the Titans had regrouped, all of whom were looking at Ravager with suspicious and untrusting expressions. "I came because I had enough. I've helped to cause you a great deal of pain and I won't be a party to it anymore. Slade ordered this. He ordered Tartarus to drop a living bomb on the city and when I wouldn't go along with it, he had me locked away."

"How did you get out, then?" Inferno asked.

"Black Adam," Ravager replied, "but that's not the end of it. The Society wants to invade Metropolis."

"Why would they do that?" Mercury asked.

"Because it's Superman's city," Ravager answered. "If they can claim Superman's city, then it'll demoralize the world to the point that there'll be no one willing to resist them."

"Do they even have the numbers to invade Metropolis?" Beast Girl asked.

"They have a number of heavy-hitters on their side," Ravager replied. "Including Match, Devastation, Black Flash, and Bright."

"Bright?" Nightstar asked.

"Yeah," Ravager confirmed. "She's the Society's trump card, just for this occasion."

"Then we have to gather everyone," Bladefire said. "Every last superhero we can contact and have them meet us in Metropolis."

"_That's not the only thing you have to worry about,"_ Bruce's voice spoke from Nightstar's communicator. _"There's still the matter of the OMAC satellite. Someone has to shut that down and even Oracle can't remotely hack into the satellite."_

"Who's going to do that?" Nightstar asked.

"_Oracle has the Steel Angels and Robin working on it, along with Blue Beetle, Goldstar, and Question,"_ Bruce replied. _"The Terrifics will be joining them, along with Lightning and Indigo."_

"Then the rest of us will go to Metropolis," Nightstar concluded.

"_We found out who fired that laser on Lena Luthor's lab,"_ Bruce added. _"It was Lena. She hacked the Watchtower's weapons systems and fired upon her own lab to set up the League."_

The Titans and Ravager swallowed that piece of news. People like Lena Luthor were the sort of conscience-less beasts that they had all donned their costumes to fight, even if some of them had lost sight of that. Upon swallowing that piece of news, they let it build up in their stomachs like a spiritual ulcer. The feelings of sickness and disgust coiled in their stomachs and grew into a righteous fury that drove Samara to teleport them all to Metropolis.

* * *

Joining the Titans and Ravager were the Justice League and Justice Society, whom Bruce had informed of the same thing that Ravager had informed the Titans. Also joining them were Hawk and Dove, Supergirl, Superwoman, Steel, and Power Woman. Captain Marvel, along with his wife Lady Marvel and their daughter Molly Marvel, joined the growing group of heroes. A boy-shaped shadow, otherwise known as Wraith, added himself to the group. The Titans East arrived, along with many of the still-living elder Titans, Dick Grayson in the lead and garbed in his Nightwing attire. Stephanie Brown was beside him in her own Nightwing costume, which had done away with the cloak for a full-face mask that let her hair flow freely. The Doom Patrol had arrived as well, consisting of Robotman, Negative Man, and Mento and Elasti-Girl's biological daughter Minder. They weren't the only heroes that were coming; so many more were pouring in as well, retired, still active, and new and untried.

They had all met at the sign that said "Welcome to Metropolis, Home of Superman!" Nightstar looked at that sign with a slightly sad smile. Just then, Samara placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," she said to the younger girl. "We won't let the Society take this city without a fight."

When they came, the heroes were almost caught unawares. It wasn't that they didn't know the Society was coming. It was just that they weren't ready for the numbers the Society came in. It was a veritable army, an army of darkness, so to speak. Villains and meta-criminals of all styles and power levels, all united under the banner of the Society. Standing at the head of this baneful army were Slade, Kon-El's doppelganger Match, Wonder Woman's "opposite and negative" Devastation, Bright, Black Flash, and Black Adam.

"If it isn't my traitorous daughter," Slade greeted ominously.

"I'm not your daughter, Slade," Ravager answered, drawing her swords threateningly.

Slade drew his broadsword and pointed it at Ravager. "Then you're my enemy . . . and you know what happens to my enemies, don't you?"

It was hard to miss the manner in which Bladefire stepped slightly in front of Ravager, pointing his energy blade at Slade. Slade simply smirked under his mask and narrowed his eye at Bladefire. "Quite protective of her, aren't you, Grayson?" he remarked.

"You're not setting one foot inside Metropolis, Slade," Bladefire answered.

"And what makes you think you can stop me?" Slade questioned mockingly.

"All this posturing bores me," Devastation sneered. She launched herself at Wonder Woman, striking with enough force to kill weaker beings. Beside her, Match telekinetically blasted Superman, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying into and through a nearby building. Black Flash "zoomed" at the speedsters, moving so quickly that even they couldn't react swiftly enough to stop her. Black Adam clashed with his more heroic counterpart in the skies, the Power of Shazam fueling both their blows.

Bedlam became the rule of the night, with heroes and villains clashing fiercely at the border dividing Metropolis from the outside world. As hard as the heroes tried to prevent the villains from entering Metropolis, they were ultimately unsuccessful, the battle spilling into the streets of the gleaming City of Tomorrow. Bright used her power like a giant flash grenade, blinding the Titans battling her and then proceeding to beat them while their eyes were trying to recover.

"Slade . . ." Dick snarled, the familiar hate welling up in his chest. Beside him were Nightstar, Bladefire, and Ravager. All four had their weapons out, whether fashioned from their own innate energies or carried on their persons. The snarl of his name was the only warning Slade received before being fiercely attacked by the Graysons and Ravager. Slade bent backwards to avoid the lash of Nightstar's whip and twisted to evade Ravager's swords. He blocked Dick's escrima sticks with his sword and parried Bladefire's energy sword.

The four attacked him together, Slade moving out of the way of their attacks with unnatural alacrity. He slashed at them with his sword, slicing the outer layer of Dick's costume and being blocked by Ravager's sword. She tried to slice him, but his armor was such that it managed to protect him from her sword. In return for that, he thrust his blade at her, but she evaded it. Nightstar lashed at him with her whip, only for Slade to catch it and use it to tug her toward him. Nightstar used that to propel herself into a kick, dissipating the energy whip so that Slade had nothing to hold onto. Bladefire slashed at him with his sword, cutting Slade's mask but doing relatively little to harm him.

Match and Kon-El battled fiercely, physical blows and telekinetic strikes being the main methods by which they fought. Kon-El glared at the reversed "S"-shield on Match's chest. "You don't deserve to wear that!" he exclaimed, firing a blast of heat vision at his dark twin.

Match simply blocked it with a telekinetic shield. "Always so emotional," he mocked.

Lady Marvel and Molly Marvel, along with Black Adam's wife Isis and their son Osiris, took on Captain Nazi together. Captain Nazi may have been fiercely powerful, but even he was no match for three Shazam-empowered humans and one wielding the power of a goddess. Ultimately, he was defeated with an almost-ridiculous ease.

Arrows flew as Red Hood, Scarlet Archer, and Connor Hawke took on Night Arrow, the son of the Society of Assassins' archer Merlyn. Night Arrow shot his arrows at Red Hood, Scarlet Archer, and Connor, but they evaded and fired their own arrows at Night Arrow. Red Hood swapped out her arrow for her wrist-worn crossbow and shot its bolts at Night Arrow, who was hit in the arm by one of the bolts. He plucked out the bolt and shot more arrows at Red Hood. Connor caught one of the arrows and Scarlet Archer somersaulted into the air to fire crossbow bolts at Night Arrow.

Jay Garrick, Wally West, Bart Allen, Blitz, Max Mercury, and Jesse Quick took on the Rogues, while Kid Flash, Mercury, Velocity, Jenny Quick, and Windrunner took on Black Flash. The younger speedsters sadly found themselves outmatched by Black Flash, whose personal timeframe was so accelerated that even they seemed too slow for her. The "strength in numbers" paradigm unfortunately proved inaccurate when it came to dealing with someone outside the normal flow of time. Black Flash effortlessly blocked a kick from Mercury while kicking Kid Flash and then throwing Mercury at Velocity, who caught his cousin-brother and spun him into a throw at Black Flash, lending the platinum boy speed to enhance the throw. With the loaned speed, Mercury pummeled Black Flash, who blocked each and every one of his punches. She finally slammed the heel of her hand into his temple, hitting him hard enough to disorient him.

Batman, Stephanie, and Erinys fought Fray, Erinys being the only one who could pierce his kinetic field. This shocked Fray deeply, in fact more so than it actually hurt him. "How?" he asked. He received no answer from Erinys, who simply continued to attack him.

Hex ran around Samara, firing hexes at the partly demonic girl while using her speed to evade Samara's attacks. Samara finally grew weary of Hex and generated a shadow field around her to slow Hex down. Hex cast her magic on Samara's shadow field, resulting in an explosion of dark energy and pink energy that sent both girls flying. Hex rose to her feet first and attacked Samara in a pink speed blur. Samara attempted to block Hex's attacks with her telekinesis, but Hex was moving too fast for her.

Inferno and Phoebus attacked Dr. Blaze and vice versa with flames and constructs made from those same flames. Dr. Blaze generated a fire beast and sent it after the time-distanced pyromancers, but Inferno absorbed the fire beast and Phoebus shot his flames into an attack on Dr. Blaze, who dissipated it with a wave of his hand. Dr. Blaze retaliated with an attack of fiery knives, but Inferno and Phoebus blocked all of them with a fire construct staff. He jumped into the air and came down striking Dr. Blaze with his staff, while Phoebus knocked Dr. Blaze's feet out from under him with a low kick. Dr. Blaze grabbed the staff and used it to help himself back up, generating a fiery explosion to blast Inferno and Phoebus, the latter of whom absorbed the blast.

Beast Girl tore entire sections of ground out and flung them at Gemini with her geokinetic powers, but Gemini shattered them with her outstretched fists. She stretched her fingers into blades and shot them forth at Beast Girl, who dodged them and lunged at her. Gemini wrapped her arms around Beast Girl and began to squeeze her, but Beast Girl tore herself free with molten energy and fired that same energy at Gemini. The energy blew a hole in Gemini, but Gemini quickly regenerated. Gemini charged at Beast Girl and slashed at her with her finger-blades, but Beast Girl dodged and slashed at Gemini with her own claws.

When Gemini spotted Changeling making his way to defend his daughter, she let out a bloodcurdling scream of rage. "_Murderer!_" she screeched. She stretched her bladed hands at Changeling, intending to impale him. A wall of earth rose from the ground to block Gemini's attack, but Gemini's bladed hands tore through it with little evidence of slowing down. More earthen walls rose from the ground to protect Changeling, but Gemini began stretching her body around them. Beast Girl jumped up and sliced through Gemini's stretching body with golden-glowing claws. Gemini re-formed herself and stretched her fingers into a sharp lattice that trapped Beast Girl and Changeling.

Robotman charged at Gemini and punched her in the stomach, setting off a sonic charge that exploded her. Negative Man leaped out of his bandaged body and attacked Gemini in shadow form as she reformed. Minder shaped blades from her telekinetic energies and shot them at Gemini. Beast Girl and Changeling charged at Gemini as tigers, slashing at her from both sides. Terra laid the finishing blow with a platform of earth that squashed Gemini.

Raven and Jericho fought together, Jericho inside Raven's body and augmenting her fighting skills with his. Combined with Raven's magic, they were able to aid Samara in defeating Hex. Samara managed to hold Hex still long enough for Raven to lock eyes with the pink witch so that Jericho could jump inside her body. Once inside, Jericho turned Hex's powers against Dr. Blaze, causing his flames to extinguish themselves. Jericho jumped inside Dr. Blaze and used him to attack several other villains, taking them out with Dr. Blaze's pyrokinetic abilities. Jericho jumped from villain to villain, knocking them down like so many bowling pins.

"I've got an idea," Windrunner said.

"Speak fast," Velocity said.

"We have to channel all of our speed into someone," Windrunner spoke. "We can use that to boost that someone high enough in speed to match Black Flash."

"Who gets that speed?" Kid Flash asked.

"Mercury," Jenny Quick replied simply. "He's already the fastest of all of us, so he has the best chance of keeping up with Black Flash."

"If you say so," Mercury said.

"Go," Velocity said. "We'll give you all the speed we have."

Mercury charged at Black Flash, who effortlessly blocked each and every one of his attacks. He didn't give up, suddenly feeling himself accelerate much further than the level he had been at before. To him, Black Flash now appeared to be moving as fast as him, if not marginally slower. He could see her moves, clear as daylight, and thus evade them. He was even able to hit her, catching her by surprise.

"Howwwww?" she asked.

Mercury simply smirked and kicked her in the stomach. Black Flash absorbed the blow and grabbed his ankle, twisting him into the air. Mercury spun and kicked her again, only for her to block the kick and swing herself into a kick of her own. Mercury evaded the kick and struck Black Flash in the chin, knocking her down. Black Flash rose to her feet and attacked Mercury again, only to be struck down again.

"Too slow," he whispered.

The Graysons and Ravager were still battling Slade, who showed no signs of being tired. Being possessed of much the same abilities as Slade, Ravager wasn't tiring anytime soon herself. Neither were Nightstar and Bladefire. Dick, on the other hand, was starting to feel the weight of his years, although he was still doing a fine job of keeping just a few paces behind Slade.

"I must say, I have been looking forward to facing you again, Dick," Slade remarked almost affectionately as he blocked Dick's strike. "But you're starting to get tired. I can see it in your body language. Just the tiniest slip . . . and I'll finish you, right in front of your delightful children. You can see your precious Starfire in heaven if you think such a place exists."

Dick gritted his teeth at the mention of his deceased first wife and battered Slade furiously with his escrima sticks. Slade made no effort to avoid Dick's strikes, almost mocking him with his refusal to dodge. Finally, he grabbed Dick's wrists and pulled them apart, holding the younger man's arms out. He slammed his knee into Dick's solar plexus with enough force to knock the wind out of the former Titan leader. As Dick collapsed, Nightstar and Bladefire redoubled their attack on Slade, Nightstar launching herself into a flying kick and Bladefire kicking up from the ground. Slade caught both their legs and flipped into an upside-down split-kick that struck them both down. He drew his sword and clashed blades with Ravager, both of whom were moving at exceptional speeds. The two might have been evenly matched in abilities and skills, but Slade was the superior in experience, a fact he demonstrated when he feinted to trick Ravager into a position where he could and did impale her.

Throwing her aside, Slade was suddenly slashed by an electrified blade and a blade of psycho-spiritual energy. He quickly healed from both attacks, but he was stunned as to who had attacked him, until he saw two black-clad figures. One was in a suit of metallic black, bladed fins extending from his forearms, a red-outlined black bat on his chest, and a pointy-eared, red-eyed black mask, electrified blades extended from the backs of his hands. The other was slightly smaller and wearing a silver-edged black jacket over a silver-trimmed black suit with multiple zippers on the legs. He had long silver hair and violet eyes set in a somewhat feminine face.

"Cipher," Slade greeted. "I wasn't expecting to see you so soon." He looked over at the Batman-styled man. "And who might you be, a Batman cosplayer?"

Dick, Nightstar, and Bladefire had risen to their feet, along with a healed Ravager, only to spot the two young men. "Raziel? Ibn?" Nightstar uttered.

Cipher turned to Nightstar with a soft smile on his face. "Hello, Mar'i. It's been entirely too long." Beside him, Ibn al Xu'ffasch nodded. Their attention returned to Slade and Cipher spoke again. "Bombing a city full of innocent people. You've reached an entirely new low, Terminator."

"And what are you going to do about it?" Slade asked.

His answer came in the form of a telekinetic blast that sent him careening into a nearby building. The armor managed to absorb much of the impact and he recovered from the rest. Slade rose to his feet with a bemused expression underneath his mask. "You were never able to do that before."

Ibn held six red-edged black Batarangs between his fingers and threw them all at Slade, who dodged each and every one of them. However, that had been just a feint; Ibn was rushing at Slade as Slade dodged the Batarangs and had gotten close enough to slice through his armor with his wrist-blades. Slade sliced at Ibn with his broadsword, but Ibn dodged and spun into a kick that sent Slade flying. Slade quickly flipped onto his feet and slashed at Ibn again, only for Ibn to block with his wrist-blades. Unfortunately for Ibn, Slade slipped inside his guard and stabbed him with a knife.

"IBN!" Nightstar cried out, flying into an attack on Slade, who was helpless to defend himself as she sliced him from all sides with energy wire. With the way Nightstar wielded her energy, the wire became a deadly moving web that cut the mastermind no matter where he stepped. He would heal, of course, but it was not a pleasant thing to be cut with energy wire. Finally, Nightstar relented, but by then Slade was bleeding from virtually everywhere on his body. The wounds quickly healed themselves, though, and he showed no sign of being slowed down by his injuries.

Before the fight could really be decided, Supergirl suddenly let out a horrified shout. "MISSILES! _They're firing missiles at us!_"

"What the hell?" Steel asked.

"I can hear them . . ." Supergirl replied with a frightened tone. "Three warplanes, each of them armed."

"_They've signed their own death warrants,_" Ibn snarled, his voice deadly. He rocketed into the air and extended the glider wings. He shot forward at the warplanes, electrified blades ready to cut them down along with their pilots.

"Ibn, no!" Bladefire shouted, flying after him with Nightstar.

Ibn had already made it to the lead warplane, slicing its wings and rudder off with a brutally swift swing of his blades. He cut through another one, and the pilot of the third had by now realized what was happening and was now opening fire on Ibn. Ibn dodged the lasers and swung to shred the third warplane. The pilot of that particular warplane was more agile than Ibn had anticipated and got away with only a scratch. He managed to fire the missile, only for his plane to be violently shredded by Ibn.

On the ground, Phoebus could see that Ibn had failed to stop one of the missiles from being fired. "No . . ." he muttered. "No, not again . . . I came back to stop this . . . and I will . . ." He rocketed toward the missile, intending to detonate it high above the city, before it could kill anyone.

Meanwhile, Nightstar, Bladefire, and Supergirl were busy catching the warplanes that Ibn had wrecked so that their pilots did not die. As they navigated the planes to safety, they saw Phoebus rocketing toward the missile, his body wreathed in flames. "What are you doing?" Bladefire asked in shock.

"Stopping that missile," Phoebus replied.

"But you'll die!" Bladefire shouted.

"So?" Phoebus asked. "If it saves this city from becoming a smoking crater and you all from being obliterated, it's worth it. Besides, if I make things right, the timeline will fix itself so that I don't exist."

"Good-bye . . . Jeremiah," Nightstar said.

"Good-bye, Mar'i," Phoebus answered. He continued his suicidal charge toward the missile, accelerating himself to match its speed. To his horror, he saw that it was getting closer and closer to the skyline of Metropolis. He pushed himself harder than he had ever pushed himself, amplifying the thermo-chemical reactions that enabled his flight. He prepared for the explosive detonation that would cost him his life, but also take out the missile if he was lucky.

His last thoughts before the fatal impact were, _Good-bye, Samara._ The last thing he registered was a flash of white . . . and he slipped into merciful nothingness.

* * *

End Notes: That's the end of this arc, but not quite the end of Teen Titans: Future Storm. There's an epilogue chapter after this that will wrap up the series by showing the new status quo of the Future Storm universe following the events of this arc. If you're wondering who exactly sent those warplanes, you'll see that in the next chapter, too.

Captain Marvel and Lady Marvel are Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel, Jr. and Mary Bromfield/Mary Marvel, respectively. Molly Marvel is an OC invented by Plushie Nietzsche and will be appearing in his story Future Storm: Teen Titans Central, which is spun off from this story. Superwoman is the grown-up version of the modern Supergirl (who, as she's classically known, is Superman's cousin).

Fog Spirit, you've been demanding this long enough, so I hope you're happy with Cipher's return. As for Ibn al Xu'ffasch, you readers with long memories may know him from the side story "Son of the Bat," which is also the translation of his name. Anyway, I'm hoping you'll leave a review to let me know what you think of how I've developed this particular arc.


	48. Epilogue: One Year Later

"Teen Titans: Future Storm"

Epilogue: "One Year Later"

Disclaimer: Teen Titans, as well as other DC Comics properties and characters, belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers, not me.

Author's note: After a year and three months, it's finally over. I'm finished. For those of you who've stuck with me through this series, I'm glad you did. Now I'm up to 48 chapters, counting arcs and standalones as well as this epilogue. Thanks for everything, my readers, even those of you who don't bother reviewing.

* * *

Mar'i Grayson sat down, looking at the handheld video recorder pointed at her. It was already primed to begin recording. All she had to do was speak and tell her story. It wasn't meant for anyone else's eyes or ears except hers, given that it was her video journal.

_

* * *

_

Starshine Video Log, Entry 1: It's been a long, long year. Things have changed . . . for all of us. We don't know yet if it's for the better or the worse. I suppose I should start at the beginning. After Phoebus gave his life to stop that missile from killing us all, hero and villain alike, we decided to settle things with the government once and for all.

* * *

"Mr. President, you were the one who approved the dispatch of neutron missiles into Metropolis, weren't you?" Nightstar greeted with barely repressed fury in her tone and eyes.

"Yes, yes, I was," the President of the United States answered.

"Why?" Nightstar asked. "_Why?_"

"Because you proved to be too dangerous," the president replied. "For God's sake, you people were outright brawling all over Metropolis. All of you! Doesn't matter whether you think of yourselves crime-fighters or criminals, you're all on a permanent power trip! You think normal humans are just there to be at your mercy, whether you're 'protecting' them or trying to conquer or kill them!"

"That's not true!" Nightstar insisted.

"Isn't it?" the president asked. "You fly above us, you run ahead of us, or you hide from us. That's not exactly going to inspire confidence in you."

"We've spent years, decades even, protecting humanity," Wonder Woman replied. "We deserve better than to be treated like we're just as dangerous as what we protect you from."

"And maybe you should let us protect ourselves," the president retorted. "We've been watching you. We've learned how to fight metahuman threats ourselves."

"Sure, but who's to say you won't use the metahumans you create to further your own agenda aside from protecting this country?" Scarlet Archer asked. "The reason most of us don't officially affiliate ourselves with any government is so we can protect the _world,_ not some politician's agenda."

"And maybe considering yourselves separate from humanity's concerns isn't a good idea for any of us," the president answered. "The fact is that people are afraid of you. Normal people. They've been afraid of you for a long time; they just haven't been willing to voice it."

"Until someone began setting us up," Superman Kon-El spat.

"Setting you up?" the president asked. "You did it to yourselves. Your Batman, your Dark Knight, he really did set up a shadow League to overthrow governments whose policies he found fault in. That you can't spin away so easily."

"Never mind that you were maintaining 'cozy' relations with some of those governments," Batman sneered. "I know how your kind works. As long as you can find a use or a profit, it doesn't matter how many innocent lives are ruined or sacrificed. That is something I'll never abide."

"Be as self-righteous as you like," the president retorted. "You 'superheroes' don't have a monopoly on integrity and rectitude."

"I'm surprised you haven't forgotten what those words mean after all those years in public office," Bladefire commented contemptuously. "Whatever you think our crimes are, yours are worse. Your Bureau of Metahuman Affairs, a.k.a. the Department of Extranormal Operations, infected almost 8 million people with a nanotech virus to make them into metahuman slayers. Mercury wouldn't have killed that man if he hadn't been one of those infected and he didn't even know that man was human. Neither of them deserved what happened to them."

"What do you want?" the president asked.

"We're here to negotiate, believe it or not," Superman Kal-El replied. "The Watchmen Act in and of itself is not a bad idea. It may have come with ulterior motivations, but it could be something to ease human/meta relations, with some modifications."

"What sort of modifications would you be speaking of?" the president asked, raising an eyebrow in interest.

"An independent tribunal," Superman Kal-El suggested. "One to investigate any reports of misconduct by metahuman crime-fighters and punish those crime-fighters if those reports are found to be true. How does that sound to you?"

"It sounds very good," the president answered. "I have to admit, that would be an excellent idea."

"What about registration?" Nightstar asked.

"We'll handle that," Alan Scott replied.

"You mean to say that metahuman crime-fighters will have to register with you?" the president asked. "Forgive me if I sound skeptical."

"There's also the matter of training," Jay Garrick added. "We've been training the younger generations of heroes for years. We can do it with this generation, too. Just give us the authority to do so."

"You raise very good points," the president mused. "Fine. You have yourselves a deal. Just let me get it through Congress."

_

* * *

_

That was the beginning of what we hoped would be a better future for both the normal and the super-powered. The government was ultimately willing to cooperate, but there were some that objected to metahumans being given so much power to regulate their own. They managed to find a voice in the media, particularly those anti-meta news networks, both televised and online. And there were those that were unhappy with us cooperating with the government.

* * *

"They tried to kill you," Intrigue spat. "And you're working with them?"

"It's better this way," Nightstar said. "It means we can rebuild the public's trust in us, if we show ourselves as willing to work with them instead of constantly hiding from them."

"And what happens when the government co-opts you?" Intrigue asked morbidly. "What happens when it decides to use you to fulfill its own agenda?"

"It won't be like that," Nightstar answered. "Besides, you're assuming we'd just go along with it."

"You'd have no choice," Intrigue replied grimly. "Not if you're so serious about maintaining the public trust. Believe it or not, most people are sheep. Blind, dumb, ignorant, weak little sheep. Tell them a pretty little story, one that conforms to their beliefs and illusions, and they'll eat out of your hand. The government knows that and it can play that game better than you can."

"You're paranoid, you know that?" Nightstar remarked.

"You haven't seen what they do outside this country!" Intrigue yelled. "You haven't seen how they ravage developing countries, how they leave them bereft of natural resources and drowning in their own filth! Don't talk to me about paranoia!"

Intrigue noticed Nightstar taking a step back. "I didn't mean to frighten you," she whispered to the younger girl. "Please . . . just leave me be."

"Sure, Lucia," Nightstar replied quietly.

_

* * *

_

Intrigue and I still haven't spoken since then. I think neither of us really knows how to talk to each other anymore. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Intrigue was never capable of trusting authority in all the time I've known her. To her, authority is meant to ultimately be abused and exploited for the gain of those who have it. Then again, I should have realized what was really going on with her . . . she was scared for me.

_There was something good that came out of what happened: Raziel came back. Him and Ibn. Until the moment I saw him again, I had no idea how much I missed him, how much I missed them both._

_Rose was staying with us, too. She really had nowhere else to go since walking away from her father. Of course, there was also the revelation that she had been screwing my brother since the first time she got access to our Tower. That didn't go over well with a lot of us, Dad, Uncle Tim, and Grandpa Bruce in particular._

* * *

"How . . . long . . . has this . . . been going on?" Dick asked Bladefire in a dangerously calm voice that was an almost-perfect facsimile of Bruce's.

"Since the first time Rose joined forces with us," Bladefire answered nonchalantly.

"What the hell would possess you to sleep with her?" Dick inquired angrily. "She's an assassin!"

Bladefire fixed his father with a frosty stare. "Because I was sick of it. Sick of feeling hollow, sick of feeling like a walking corpse. Do you have any idea what it's like for someone who's part of a race that thrives on emotions to be hardly capable of feeling? It wasn't only a disgrace; it also made using my powers so difficult. I had to dredge up every happy memory I had – and all of those were from when Mom was still alive – to fly, every time I could really believe in myself – again when Mom was still alive . . . but the rage . . . the rage was easy. I sharpened it into a sword, a blade of wrath and fury." He chuckled bitterly. "You never did ask why I called myself 'Bladefire.'"

"You never answered my question," Dick stated.

"I wasn't finished yet," Bladefire answered. "I was able to feel something when I was with Rose. Something other than anger, something other than hollowness. She helped me to live again, to truly live, and for that I'll always love her, no matter what you say. She's not the monster her father is and I'm not going to stand here and let you equate them."

"I don't approve of this," Dick said.

"You don't have to," Bladefire retorted. "You may have lived and died by Grandpa Bruce's approval, but I don't live and die by yours." He walked away from his father that day, not feeling a damned thing except grim satisfaction. Rose belonged with him, as he belonged with her, and he didn't care what anyone said.

Later that night, Bladefire came to his bed in the catacombs being used by the team following the destruction of the Tower. He simply pulled back the covers and was ready to lie down when he spotted Rose Wilson, nude except for a white patch covering her Hell Spiral eye. Her normal blue eye gazed into Bladefire's eyes with mischief and desire.

"What are you doing, Rose?" Bladefire asked.

"I heard how you stood up for me," Rose replied gently. "I just wanted to show you my gratitude." She kissed him soundly on the lips, moaning gently into the lip-lock. Bladefire melted against her, kissing her back passionately.

_

* * *

_

Of course, I had a lot of questions to ask Raziel about where he'd been and what he'd been doing. I suppose part of it was due to jealousy; I wanted to know that he hadn't found someone else while he was away.

* * *

"How did you two meet up again?" Nightstar asked.

"We were searching for the same thing," Cipher replied. "We decided it would be better if we searched together."

"And what did you find?" Nightstar asked.

"I found that the gulf between who I was and who I wanted to be was not so wide," Cipher answered. "I just needed the courage to step across it." He sighed. "Once I overcame that, I learned from other martial artists, older and greater than I was. I even learned from a few fighters that used _chi_ and intertwined their lessons with my existing abilities."

"I saw," Nightstar remarked. "When you were fighting Slade, you used telekinesis on him."

"That was the real source of my abilities," Cipher explained. "It was a telekinetic power that I could manipulate differently than most possessing that ability, hence the powers you saw me use."

"And you, Ibn?" Nightstar asked. "Or do you prefer Terry?"

"I wouldn't mind either," Ibn replied. "I learned from many of the same people Raziel learned from. We studied together, ate together, fought together, even slept together." Catching Nightstar's raised eyebrow, he smirked. "Get your mind out of the gutter . . . unless you'd like Raziel and I to put on a show for you. Would that please you?" He and Cipher had a good chuckle at Nightstar's flushed cheeks.

Cipher quickly grew somber, which Nightstar noticed. "What's wrong?" she asked him.

"I met someone," Cipher replied. "Her name was Karin, and she was studying with me and Ibn for a while. She reminded us so much of you – fiery, bold, courageous, spirited, compassionate. Nothing happened between us, though. We never even had the chance; she turned out to have the OMAC nanovirus in her. It activated one day and she went after me. I . . . had to stop her from killing me, and I . . . her will was stronger than I expected. She broke through the programming long enough to beg me to kill her before she killed me."

"Did you?" Nightstar asked.

"Yes," Cipher confirmed heavily. All Nightstar could do was hug him, and hope that would be enough to comfort him. "You've gotten taller," the combat psychic uttered stupidly.

_

* * *

_

Eventually, Rose and Ibn left. They each had their own agendas and they came to realize that those agendas weren't necessarily reconcilable with the Titans'.

* * *

"I can't do this anymore," Ravager said to Bladefire as she suited up.

"Can't do what?" Bladefire wondered.

"Just reacting to what comes," Ravager replied. "All we're really doing is patching up gaping wounds, just for those wounds to be reopened almost immediately after we're done patching them. It's time someone did the radical surgery necessary to save this world from falling apart."

"What do you mean?" Bladefire questioned.

"Reinventing the world," Ravager answered. "We'll never save it if we're focused on street-level crime or outright villainy. Not all criminals operate in the open. Many of them hide behind positions of power and authority, using the smokescreen of legitimacy those positions offer to conceal the evil they do. We'll never save the world, truly save it, if we don't get to those people, if we don't stop them."

"And how do you expect to stop them?" Bladefire asked.

"By toppling them, by throwing them off their pedestals and showing them to the world for the slime they really are," Ravager replied. "I love you, Joh'n, I always will, but we have enough firefighters out there. We need hunters." With one final kiss for her lover, she donned her mask and exited Bladefire's room. Along the way out of the catacombs, she found Ibn al Xu'ffasch garbed in his liquid metal Batsuit. "Where are you going?"

"I agree with you," Ibn answered. "Real justice isn't going to come by throwing some super-powered thugs behind bars. Real justice is going to come when we can expose the corrupt and the venal and depose them from their seats of power."

"Do you want to join me?" Ravager asked.

"Yes," Ibn replied.

_

* * *

_

Mercury and Beast Girl were pardoned by the president. It was one of the first things he did after our conversation in the White House following the Battle of Metropolis. Once the public was made to understand that both of them were set up by people who wanted to destroy the good name of superheroes, it was willing to embrace them again. Of course, Mercury still felt guilty about killing Richard Snow, even though he hadn't known that OMAC was a human being.

_Of course, something very strange happened. Specifically, something having to do with Black Flash. That something was that her insanity took on a new permutation and her focus on Mercury became . . . love. That's right; she was so bat-guano crazy, pardon the pun, that she fell head over heels for him._

* * *

Mercury was speeding through San Francisco, righting wrongs as he passed. He saved a boy from being run over by an unobservant driver. He stole the speed from bullets that would have perforated a young woman being mugged and left the mugger disabled before he knew what hit him. He waved to Detective John "J" Perez, who had survived the disaster in Jump City and transferred to San Francisco. Beside him was Sprint, a fourteen-year-old female speedster garbed in skintight red with a yellow lightning stripe extending diagonally from her neck and looping around to her back. Her hair was black with a white streak, evoking images of a certain "untouchable" character from a superhero drama series.

To the two speedsters' surprise, they saw someone racing beside them. Mercury tensed up, knowing just by the outfit who the person was. It was Ally Zolomon, alias Black Flash. He was prepared for a fight, but what he got was something else entirely.

Black Flash pinned him to a nearby car, peeling her mask away from the lower half of her face before she kissed him passionately. Mercury struggled in her grip before finally vibrating out of it. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked, wiping his lips frantically.

"Why hate you, Mercury-honey . . . when I can love you instead?" Black Flash asked amorously.

"Get away from him!" Sprint shouted, charging at Black Flash at super-speed. For her trouble, the less experienced speedster received a brutal snap-kick to her stomach, which knocked the breath out of her.

"Sprint!" Mercury shouted, running to her side. As he ran, Black Flash tripped him, but Mercury twisted as he fell, turning his unwilling descent into a kick to her chest. Black Flash stumbled back, Mercury pressing his advantage with a barrage of fast punches. Black Flash blocked his punches and struck back with a kick to his chest.

"I don't want to do this, Mercury-beloved," Black Flash groaned. "Why can't you stop fighting me and just love me?"

"Some things I can't forgive that easily," Mercury answered bitterly. "And I have a girlfriend, by the way."

Black Flash whimpered slightly before pulling her mask back down so that it concealed the entirety of her face. "Not fair. I love you so much more than she can." She sped away, moving faster than even Mercury could move.

"What's up with her?" Sprint asked. "I knew you had fangirls, but I didn't know she was one of them."

"It's a secret," Mercury joked in response. "So secret that even I didn't know it."

_

* * *

_

The Justice League and Justice Society had set up academies in every state in the nation, all for teenage metahumans interested in becoming heroes. The way the training worked was that it tested students both physically and mentally. Not only were they trained to control their powers and harness them to the fullest extent possible and for the good of humanity, they were also trained in how to fight without the use of their powers. That latter part was especially useful for those whose powers weren't specifically useful in combat. In-school lessons would typically involve the history of superheroes and super-villains and how to aid official authorities without interfering unduly with their operations.

_Of course, there was only so much they could learn in the classroom, so we, the Titans, were brought on as peer tutors to bring the students out onto the field. The condition was that we weren't supposed to bring them along for actual super-villain fights. If we did run into a super-villain, anyway, we were instructed to focus more on protecting our charges than fighting the villain._

* * *

Cipher blocked a palm thrust from Amelia Coeur, now dubbed Copycat, and wrapped his hand around her wrist. Not one to be deterred, Copycat pushed off on one foot and swung herself into an aerial kick that was also blocked by Cipher. Copycat kicked him with her remaining foot, striking him in the groin. Cipher gritted his teeth in the unholy agony suffered by any male to be struck there and ended up dropping Copycat, who flipped back onto her feet. Despite the pain, he could see Nightstar in Copycat's flip.

"You've learned how to fight dirty," Cipher groaned. "Good. That'll keep you alive." He smiled. "I even see that you're starting to learn how to retain the knowledge you've absorbed. I know that because you moved like Nightstar does just now."

Copycat blushed at that, something that did not escape Cipher's keen observation. "I hope I didn't hurt you too bad," she said.

"I heal fast," Cipher answered. "Even from that. How do you like it here so far?"

"It's ok," Copycat replied. "Offspring makes me laugh. Wicked Angel scares me, though; I know she's just trying to be friendly, but she makes me kind of uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable how?" Cipher asked.

"It's just that she's so assertive, I almost feel helpless to resist her," Copycat admitted. "It's just the way she is, but it's kind of scary to be around someone that sure of herself."

"She could be your teammate someday," Cipher remarked idly.

"Yeah," Copycat admitted. "Besides, Wraith's even scarier than she is. It's like he's not even human sometimes."

"Just to let you know, a lot of the superheroes you'll be working with in the years to come aren't necessarily human," Cipher observed. "They weren't born from the human genome or on Earth, but . . . that's not what you meant, is it? You're referring to how he acts."

"Yeah," Copycat confirmed. "He stays in shadow form all the time and he's so . . . so cold."

"He might be your teammate someday," Cipher remarked, echoing his earlier statement aside from the shift in gender.

_

* * *

_

Jump City is still being rebuilt and survivors are still being tended to. In the wake of Slade and Tartarus's attack, the government barricaded the city and wouldn't allow us to go back inside to handle the rebuilding. They claimed that the area of the city that was directly hit was still toxic and that going in would mean taking our lives into our hands. It's been a whole year since Jump was attacked and they still won't let us go in. I wouldn't mind so much if it was just the Titans, but there are people camped outside the wall like refugees.

* * *

At that point, Mar'i stopped the video recorder and put it away. Thinking of what had happened to the city she had sworn to protect made her sad. With that sadness came a feeling of righteous fury and whip-like purple strands of energy extended from her hands, circling her body. She walked out of her room like that and headed for the supercomputer in the open space of the catacombs. At that moment, the monitor turned on, bearing Intrigue's image.

"_Don't try to change your channel. Don't try to move on to another site. Don't try to adjust your radio. This is a leaderless transmission and it is the only truly free voice left in this nation._

"_You most likely remember the disaster of Jump City and the near-disaster that was the Battle of Metropolis. Both only happened last year. However, the disaster of Jump City wrought something just as horrific, if not more so. It seems that the chemicals used in the living bomb dropped on Jump can also stimulate superhuman abilities in certain genomes. This was actually discovered by accident and who found out? The government, specifically the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive, discovered this and when they did, they decided to replicate it. That's right; the so-called rebuilding effort is a cover for chemical-induced genetic modification of human beings. People can't go back to their homes and collect their remaining possessions and for what, so a corrupt power can engineer super-soldiers to enforce its agenda?_

"_This transmission is specifically directed at the Teen Titans. If you're truly serious about protecting your city, then go in there and protect it from those who would exploit its tragedy for their gain."_

The transmission ended then and there, as the other Titans had gathered around Nightstar. They had entered at about the point where Intrigue began talking about S.H.A.D.E.'s misdeeds in Jump City. All seven teenagers wore expressions of dismay and horror after the transmission ended.

"It's not true . . . is it?" Beast Girl asked. "She's just nuts, right?"

"Intrigue is many things," Bladefire replied. "One of those things is very, very clearheaded."

"It bears investigating," Nightstar added. "But it has to be just one of us. One of us will go into Jump City and investigate. It'll be a recon mission. That person will report their findings to the rest of us and _then_ we'll decide what to do."

"Who's going to go?" Cipher asked.

Nightstar looked at Mercury. "You are. Your speed will allow you to enter undetected, and you're good enough at being stealthy to go unnoticed until you choose to be noticed. Just one thing, Peter: Whatever you see, whatever you find, don't charge in. Report it to the rest of us and _then_ we'll do something."

"Got it," Mercury replied, the blue electric aura of the Speed Force solidifying into his costume. He sped out of the catacombs, moving quickly and silently.

* * *

That silent speed allowed him to get past the wall barricading Jump City from the rest of California undetected. He continued moving, searching for anything that might look like a S.H.A.D.E. facility. As he ran, he noticed that the city had changed from what he remembered. There were soldiers in what looked like riot armor posted at most of the street corners, so it wasn't as though he could stop so easily. However, he did hear one of the soldiers speak into a radio built into her helmet, saying something about detecting something moving at extreme speeds via the infrared equipment in her helmet.

_Aw, frag me,_ Mercury thought. He kept running, only to be halted by a woman garbed in the same spatial-shift suit as Spin Doctor. He attempted to run around her, but she followed his movements with unholy ease. Seeing no way around her, he decided to go through her, shifting himself into immateriality. Unfortunately, she punched him hard in the chest, knocking him back into solidity. "How did you do that?"

Spin Doctor simply whirled into a kick that would have knocked Mercury for a loop had the platinum speedster not caught it. Undeterred, Spin Doctor simply pushed off with her other foot and into a kick that struck Mercury in his solar plexus. Mercury was knocked back by the force of the kick and Spin Doctor back-flipped onto her foot, pirouetting on it to strike him again. Mercury twisted in midair and landed on his feet, lunging at Spin Doctor at super-speed, only for her to block his attack. He twisted into the air and into a kick that struck her down. He landed on his feet and continued running, heading for the disaster site. If what Intrigue had asserted in her last transmission was true, then S.H.A.D.E.'s base would most likely be near there.

_I ran into some trouble,_ Mercury thought to the other Titans, who would receive his message via a networking implant at the base of his brain stem. The implant translated his thoughts into electronic information that could be wirelessly transmitted to the implants embedded in the other Titans' brain stems. The implants were also connected to the Titans supercomputer, allowing the Titans to access its data and allowing the computer's user to communicate with them. The implant had been devised as a communications device that would not be so easily lost or stolen or hijacked.

_What happened?_ Nightstar asked.

_They had soldiers posted as guards inside the city,_ Mercury replied. _Those guards had infrared equipment; they detected my body heat. I also ran into a new Spin Doctor._

_That proves Intrigue was right about what was happening in Jump,_ Cipher spoke. _I suppose our faith in the government to do right by metahumans was misplaced._

_What do we do?_ Beast Girl asked.

_What Intrigue said for us to do,_ Bladefire answered grimly. _Protect our city. We're on our way, Mercury._

_Thanks,_ Mercury answered as he continued running, heading closer to the disaster area. As he ran, he suddenly found himself dodging a blast of atomic energy. "What the hell?"

"You're fast, kid, I'll give you that," a rough, harsh voice spoke from above him. "But you're not that fast."

Mercury looked up and saw a man covered from head to toe in metallic purple and orange, with the purple covering his head, shoulders, and chest and the orange covering the rest. It didn't take the speedster long to figure out who this man was. It was not really a man in the conventional sense, but the dark twin of Captain Atom: Major Force. The man was subjected to the same experiments with alien metal that had given Captain Atom his powers, but he was not cut from the same heroic cloth as Captain Atom. In fact, Major Force was a psychopathic, remorseless murderer, which suited his government employers just fine.

"Major Force," Mercury spat. He took off running, pushing himself as fast as he could without damaging the environment around him. Major Force pursued Mercury, strafing him with blasts of atomic energy along the way. The speedster simply dodged the blasts as he ran, edging closer and closer to the disaster area. Just as he was about to reach it, Major Force fired a blast ahead of him, sending him flying back . . . and into Nightstar's arms.

"Hey," Nightstar greeted.

Major Force smirked lecherously at Nightstar. "I miss the old outfit, but that new one you've got does it just fine," he leered.

Nightstar's answer was to fire an optic blast at Major Force. "You're the last man I'd want anything to do with."

"Now why do you have to be like that?" Major Force asked before retaliating with a power blast. Nightstar dodged the blast while still holding Mercury, spinning the speedster around and throwing him at Major Force. Mercury generated a crackling ball of Speed Force energy and plunged it into Major Force's chest, causing him to bleed atomic energy. "You little piece of crap! You hurt me!" He grabbed Mercury by his throat and began to squeeze, only to be interrupted by a pair of talons piercing the back of his shoulders.

"Get off him," Beast Girl, in harpy shape, hissed.

"Gladly," Major Force sneered and dropped Mercury. Beast Girl flew off Major Force and dived to catch Mercury by her talons.

"You ok?" Beast Girl asked.

"Never been better," Mercury replied.

Major Force landed on the ground and charged at the Titans, only to be blasted with a fireball from Inferno. Shadow energy knives from Samara sliced Major Force's metallic "shell," adding to the wound Mercury had dealt him. Telekinetic force blasts from Cipher knocked Major Force for a loop and Bladefire sliced him with his energy sword.

Major Force glared at the teenagers. "I've had enough of this bull-crap," he snarled and his wounds began to seal themselves. Another blast of fire struck Major Force, but it didn't come from Inferno. The alien alloy-coated psychopath looked around for the source of the attack and locked onto a blond young man in a leather jacket over a red shirt emblazoned with a white star and white pants with black boots. He withdrew a rod from his jacket and extended it into a staff, lunging at Major Force with it. Major Force caught the staff, broke it in half, and smacked the young man with the pieces of it. "And who the hell do you think you are, punk?"

"Firebrand," the young man replied, setting off a firebomb that threw Major Force away from him.

Major Force rose to his feet with cracks in his shell. "You're tougher than you look. Of course, with that outfit, that's not so hard to do. But you're not that tough, punk."

Firebrand simply shaped his flames into a quarterstaff. Meanwhile, the Titans looked between the two combatants, all of them wondering who Firebrand was. Major Force made the first move, shooting a power blast at Firebrand, who flipped out of the way of the blast only for it to hit a building behind him. Firebrand swung his fire construct staff at Major Force, who grabbed it and tried to break it, only to find that he couldn't. Firebrand jumped and decked Major Force, only to find himself nursing an injured hand. Major Force smirked at Firebrand and smacked him into the ground.

"You're not so bad, punk," Major Force commented. "You're actually kinda entertaining. So I'm gonna finish you quick."

Halting Major Force's murder attempt was a series of lashes from Nightstar's energy whip. Finally, Major Force caught the whip and used it to pull Nightstar to him, kneeing her in the stomach. He slammed his elbow onto the center of her exposed back, knocking her down beside Firebrand. Nightstar rolled onto her feet, pulling Firebrand up with her.

"You ok?" she asked him.

"Yeah," Firebrand replied.

"How do we get past this guy?" Inferno asked.

"We do," Bladefire answered. "Mercury, Cipher, Inferno – we're counting on you to find out where S.H.A.D.E. is creating its new metahumans and shut it down. The rest of us will handle Major Force."

"Got it," Mercury said, speeding away from the fight with Cipher and Inferno right behind him. The trio raced around the disaster area, looking for anything that might resemble a government installation. They found a complex with riot-armored soldiers stationed around it. Quickly taking those soldiers out, they sped inside.

Once inside, they looked around, peeking past various doors to see if they led to some kind of laboratory. While they didn't immediately find what they were looking for, they did run into a squadron of riot-armored soldiers pointing weapons at them. The three young men glared at the soldiers, Inferno materializing fireballs in his hands and Cipher summoning his telekinetic saber.

"Bring it," Mercury challenged.

The soldiers opened fire on the three teenagers, but the energy bursts from their rifles never touched them. The reason for that was that Cipher had extended the telekinetic field around his body to "catch" the bursts. He silently commanded the field to violently repel the bursts, sending them back at the soldiers, who were fortunately somewhat protected by their armor. Inferno threw the fireballs in his hands at the soldiers' rifles, melting them down. Mercury took them all down before they knew what had happened, moving blindingly fast.

"Let's go," Cipher said.

The three continued their quest, knocking out various soldiers stationed along the way. Finally, they found what they were looking for, only to wish they hadn't. Inside the final room they searched were people strapped to lab tables and stripped of their clothing. The people on the lab tables had IVs that pumped chemicals into their bodies in the hopes of producing a metahuman transformation. The three male Titans looked at this scene in horror. They looked up and saw lab-coated scientists supervised by a military general, separated from the actual laboratory by a glass partition, looking at readouts displayed on computer monitors.

Mercury ran out of the room and up to where the scientists and generals were. Inferno and Cipher ran up after him, hoping to prevent him from getting himself killed. As they followed his path, they saw an ever-increasing trail of battered soldiers. When they managed to catch up with him, the two found him confronting the scientists and general . . . and with soldiers pointing rifles at him.

"What the hell is this?" Mercury inquired furiously. "What are you doing to those people? Where did you get them from?"

"You shouldn't be asking questions when you have guns pointed at you," the general answered.

"And why are you pointing guns at him?" Cipher asked.

"Because you punks are trespassing on militarily protected property," the general replied.

"Protected," Inferno commented. "Is that what you're calling it? Looks more like 'exploited' to me."

"Unless the lot of you would like to end up perforated, I suggest you leave," the general spoke.

"No," Mercury answered.

"Fine," the general replied. "Fire!"

The soldiers opened fire on the three Titans, only for the laser bursts to be deflected by Cipher's telekinetic field. "That's enough," Cipher snarled. "Where did you get those people from?"

"We collected them from the Wall," the general answered.

"Why?" Cipher asked. "What is the purpose of pumping them with toxic chemicals?"

"Those chemicals stimulated the meta-gene in certain individuals," the general explained. "We're hoping to stimulate it in these people as well, although the process has about a four out of ten survival rate."

"Why risk six out of ten of your lab rats dying?" Cipher questioned.

"There are more threats out there than you kids are ready for," the general answered. "You think it's all aliens and super-villains? Ever since what happened last year, other countries have been mobilizing their own metahuman forces. Some of those countries are a threat to us and everything we stand for. Even terrorist groups are getting their hands on metahumans. We have to be ready to face those threats with our own metahuman forces."

"Why don't you set them free?" Mercury asked.

"We put them in chemical stasis," the general replied. "It's the only way they can remain alive during the meta-gene activation process. If we take them off it now, they'll die."

"You bastard!" Mercury screamed and charged the general, striking him in the face before any of the soldiers could stop him.

"Mercury!" Inferno exclaimed.

The general just chuckled. "Now do you see why we need to create our own metahumans? You sanctimonious little brats can't be trusted."

Inferno pulled Mercury off the general before the speedster could beat the general to a pulp. "We'll stop this, Mercury. We will. I swear it."

The three Titans reluctantly departed from the meta-gene activation facility and rejoined the battle outside. When they got there, they found Major Force slamming Bladefire into the ground. Nightstar jumped on Major Force's back and pulled him off Bladefire, carrying him into the air as she flew. Nightstar spiraled into a rapid descent while carrying Major Force, slamming him into the ground.

"That should take care of you," she spat.

"Not quite, girly," Major Force snickered, rising to his feet. He charged at Nightstar, only for Cipher to slice his head off with a telekinetic sword. Cipher picked up Major Force's head, which simply laughed at him, and kicked it all the way into the meta-gene activation facility.

"What was that?" Firebrand asked.

"Major Force is effectively immortal," Cipher replied. "A simple decapitation will not be enough to put a permanent end to him. However, kicking his head over to his handlers will send a strong message that this will not be tolerated." He looked more closely at Firebrand. "Were you a product of S.H.A.D.E.'s experimentation?"

"No," Firebrand replied. "I got my powers from being exposed to that blast last year. Aren't we going to go in there and stop them?"

"We can't do it like that," Inferno answered. "We'll simply be sacrificing the lives of S.H.A.D.E.'s test subjects."

"Then what do we do?" Firebrand asked. "Do we simply let it go on? Do we simply let innocent people become living weapons for a war machine?"

"No . . . we don't," Nightstar replied. "Firebrand . . . how would you like to become a Titan?"

"I would be honored," Firebrand said.

"Then let's begin," Nightstar said. "It's time we put a stop to this atrocity."

_

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A final message: We tried. For the sake of the people we swore to protect, we tried to work with you. And you spat in our faces. You went behind our backs and tried to create metahumans you could control and use to eliminate your enemies and silence your opponents. You ruined innocent lives for the sake of fulfilling your own agenda. Because of this, we have lost faith that we can work with you to make a better future for everyone involved. If that better future is to happen, we must take it into our own hands and remove ourselves from this system that you have transformed into a den of thieves and killers. Have a good day, Mr. President, for you and your cohorts will have many more bad days to come.

* * *

End Notes: That's the end of Teen Titans: Future Storm, but not quite the end for the characters I have either created or altered for usage in this series. I'm glad for those of you that have stuck with me throughout my writing of this series and I will assure you that I have more ideas for this universe. In the meantime, check out Plushie Nietzsche's Future Storm: Teen Titans Central. When he has the time to write again, I'm sure he'll be able to write an extraordinary second chapter and you'll thank me for recommending it to you. In the meantime, feel free to tell me what you thought of this chapter and what you thought of the series as a whole. Peace.


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